Al Capone

His Life, Legacy, and Legend

Nonfiction, History, Americas, United States, 20th Century, Biography & Memoir, Historical
Cover of the book Al Capone by Deirdre Bair, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Deirdre Bair ISBN: 9780385537162
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group Publication: October 25, 2016
Imprint: Anchor Language: English
Author: Deirdre Bair
ISBN: 9780385537162
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication: October 25, 2016
Imprint: Anchor
Language: English

From a National Book Award-winning biographer, the first complete life of legendary gangster Al Capone to be produced with the cooperation of his family, who provided the author with exclusive access to personal testimony and archival documents.

From his heyday to the present moment, Al Capone—Public Enemy Number One—has gripped popular imagination. Rising from humble Brooklyn roots, Capone went on to become the most infamous gangster in American history. At the height of Prohibition, his multimillion-dollar Chicago bootlegging, prostitution, and gambling operation dominated the organized-crime scene. His competition with rival gangs was brutally violent, a long-running war that crested with the shocking St. Valentine’s Day Massacre of 1929. Law enforcement and the media elite seemed powerless to stop the growth of his empire. And then the fall: a legal noose tightened by the FBI, a conviction on tax evasion, Alcatraz. After his release he returned to his family in Miami a much diminished man, living quietly until the ravages of his neurosyphilis took their final toll. But the slick mobster persona endures, immortalized in countless novels and movies.
The true flesh-and-blood man behind the legend has long remained a mystery. Unscrupulous newspaper accounts and Capone’s own tall tales perpetuated his mystique, but through dogged research Deirdre Bair debunks the most outrageous of these myths. With the help of Capone’s descendants, she discovers his essential humanity, uncovering a complex character that was flawed and sometimes cruel but also capable of nobility. And while revealing the private Al Capone, a genuine family man as remembered by those who knew him best, Bair relates how his descendants have borne his weighty legacy.
Rigorous and intimate, Al Capone provides new answers to the enduring questions about this fascinating figure, who was equal parts charismatic gangster, devoted patriarch, and calculating monster.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

From a National Book Award-winning biographer, the first complete life of legendary gangster Al Capone to be produced with the cooperation of his family, who provided the author with exclusive access to personal testimony and archival documents.

From his heyday to the present moment, Al Capone—Public Enemy Number One—has gripped popular imagination. Rising from humble Brooklyn roots, Capone went on to become the most infamous gangster in American history. At the height of Prohibition, his multimillion-dollar Chicago bootlegging, prostitution, and gambling operation dominated the organized-crime scene. His competition with rival gangs was brutally violent, a long-running war that crested with the shocking St. Valentine’s Day Massacre of 1929. Law enforcement and the media elite seemed powerless to stop the growth of his empire. And then the fall: a legal noose tightened by the FBI, a conviction on tax evasion, Alcatraz. After his release he returned to his family in Miami a much diminished man, living quietly until the ravages of his neurosyphilis took their final toll. But the slick mobster persona endures, immortalized in countless novels and movies.
The true flesh-and-blood man behind the legend has long remained a mystery. Unscrupulous newspaper accounts and Capone’s own tall tales perpetuated his mystique, but through dogged research Deirdre Bair debunks the most outrageous of these myths. With the help of Capone’s descendants, she discovers his essential humanity, uncovering a complex character that was flawed and sometimes cruel but also capable of nobility. And while revealing the private Al Capone, a genuine family man as remembered by those who knew him best, Bair relates how his descendants have borne his weighty legacy.
Rigorous and intimate, Al Capone provides new answers to the enduring questions about this fascinating figure, who was equal parts charismatic gangster, devoted patriarch, and calculating monster.

More books from Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Cover of the book Poetry in Person by Deirdre Bair
Cover of the book America's Jubilee by Deirdre Bair
Cover of the book No Shame in My Game by Deirdre Bair
Cover of the book Power, Terror, Peace, and War by Deirdre Bair
Cover of the book T'Ai Chi Ch'uan for Health and Self-Defense by Deirdre Bair
Cover of the book Insider Baseball by Deirdre Bair
Cover of the book My Nuclear Family by Deirdre Bair
Cover of the book Before the Wind by Deirdre Bair
Cover of the book The Swallows of Kabul by Deirdre Bair
Cover of the book Elements of Style by Deirdre Bair
Cover of the book Winston Churchill's War Leadership by Deirdre Bair
Cover of the book Asylum by Deirdre Bair
Cover of the book Strange Beauty by Deirdre Bair
Cover of the book Copeland's Cure by Deirdre Bair
Cover of the book The House on Mango Street by Deirdre Bair
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy