Product Description

    All I ever did was to sell beer and whiskey to our best people. All I ever did was to supply a demand that was pretty popular.

    Why, the very guys that make my trade good are the ones that yell the loudest about me. Some of the leading judges use the stuff.

    When I sell liquor, it's called bootlegging. When my patrons serve it on silver trays on Lake Shore Drive, it's called hospitality.

-- Al Capone

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #31014 in Books
• Published on: 1993-09-30
• Released on: 1993-09-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 504 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780688128388
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
"I guess it's all over," Al Capone told his lawyer after being sentenced to prison for tax evasion in October 1931. But, as Schoenberg ( Geneen ) diligently shows, the public has never gotten over its obsession with the legendary mobster. Schoenberg traces Capone's life from his Brooklyn boyhood (he was a notable delinquent) through his famous Chicago years to his release from prison in 1939 and his death from neurosyphilis. This fast-paced, fact-filled, behind-the-scenes account of a skilled and brutal gangster lays bare the realities behind the myths about a man still known throughout the world 45 years after his death. Schoenberg's lively biography resonates with details of Capone's dealings with other gangsters, the press, government agents and agencies. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Although his reign as Chicago mob boss only lasted from 1926 to 1931, Al Capone endures as America's most infamous gangster. Schoenberg, author of the biography Geneen ( LJ 1/85), presents a serious, well-researched portrait of Capone and his times. Capone was a product of the Prohibition era, and while one segment of society was horrified by the corruption and killings associated with him, another identified with his flouting of the blue laws. His celebrity was his downfall: "It was my own fault. Publicity--that's what got me." After a seven-year prison term for tax evasion, he died of syphilis in 1947. Readable and balanced, this is the most detailed biography of Capone to date. Recommended. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 4/15/92.
- Gregor A. Preston, Univ. of California Lib., Davis
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
Scholarly yet lively account of the legendary Prohibition- era gangster. Schoenberg (Geneen, 1984) chronicles Alphonsus Capone's Brooklyn origins; provides a microscopically detailed record of the gangsters, turf, and politicians of the decade of Capone's ascendancy in Chicago; and describes Capone's post-penitentiary retirement to Florida, where the dreaded gangster--infected with tertiary syphilis--spent his last years playing cards and fishing in the enforced calm thought necessary for syphilis victims. Schoenberg's closely focused annals provide an interesting view of the lesser-known young Capone, born in 1899 to an immigrant family. As a teenager, he was a member of the infamous Five Points gang and, by age 16, was working for Brooklyn boss Frankie Yale, serving an apprenticeship in extortion along the banks of the Gowanus Canal. Fleeing to Chicago after nearly beating to death an Irish member of the rival White Hand gang, the 21-year old Capone signed on with business-minded bootlegger and pimp John Torrio, who, besides dividing the Chicago turf with other mobsters such as the flower-loving Deany O'Banion, was expanding his operation into the middle-class suburbs. Capone mastered his volcanic temper, and, under the tutelage of the bland and friendly Torrio--whose signature remark was, ``We don't want any trouble''--took elocution lessons and became perhaps the first gangster to manipulate public relations, cooperating fully with photographers and making himself always available to reporters. At age 26, Capone bought the entire business from Torrio, who decided to return to Italy after being shot in the war that erupted after O'Banion's murder. Avoids the mythologizing of much Capone material, and likely to endure as a standard reference. (Eight pages of b&w photographs, maps--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

Neither Godfather Nor Good Guy
While attending a Chicago Cubs baseball game in the spring of Depression-deepening 1930, President Herbert Hoover was viciously booed by fellow fans. A "used furniture dealer" was also in attendance that day. The same crowd lustily cheered him. His name was Alphonse Capone.

Illuminating anecdotes like this make Robert J. Schoenberg's "Mr. Capone," an exhaustively researched and finely detailed record of an unlikely icon in modern U.S. history, a welcome read. Most books on organized crime bounce around the extremes of "Godfather-like" mystical adoration, gloomy conspiratorial hype or shrill partisan muckraking. Schoenberg's account, rejecting these worn approaches, is a refreshing, fascinating chronicle of a powerful person who, in his own way, played a key role in the development and direction of 20th century urban America.

One of the first "leaders" to make effective use of the news media to influence public opinion, Brooklyn-born Capone and his brainchild--the turbulent, uniquely multiethnic Chicago "Outfit" (as the Mafia was termed there) reflected the radical changes the U.S. was undergoing in the postwar 1920s. Among these were its complex and contradictory ethics and morals, its violence and carefree hedonism, its strenuous attempt to assimilate and reconcile multiple ethnic groups newly arrived to these shores, a deep hunger for material "success" and social "respectability" as well as the swiftly emerging predominance of the now-familiar urban environment. All of it in the spirit of Capone's curious but favorite and oft-quoted phrase; "We don't want any trouble."

However, the "trouble" that "Scarface Al" seemingly so much wanted to avoid became his own epitaph and remains a hallmark of an era that still heavily influences our society to this day. All of the popular stereotypes aside, it is the strength of "Mr. Capone" that it reminds us that the negative and lurid as well as the positive and uplifting all play a somehow vitally necessary, if often quite misunderstood, role in the continually-unfolding American experience.

Outstanding
This is THE definitive biography of the world's most famous gangster. The book is exceptionally well-written, able to satisfy anyone from a casual layman to an organized crime expert. Schoenberg walks us through Capone's life, showing us why he did what he did and avoiding getting caught up in the usual myths surrounding him. The author's notes at the end of the book are extremely helpful. Most of all, Schoenberg gets almost all the dates and facts right when dealing with the events surrouning Capone's life. While I personally disagree with his take on the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, he presents this event and others like it in such a precise manner one cannot help but say positive things. Anybody seeking information about Al Capone should look no further than Mr. Capone. A few other books about him have been published in the last ten years, specifically one by Laurence Bergreen, which is a far worse book and yet has received more publicity the Schoenberg's opus. All others should be ignored. Mr. Capone is the best book ever written about Al Capone.

Brilliant!
Robert Schoenberg really did a masterful job. The way the author describes the Capone-era is breathtaking and I was pleased that he also focusses on Capone's rivals and mentor(s). Besides the enormous amount of research he did I was particularly impressed with his writing skills. His fluent and accurate style, the humour he puts into the text is simply fantastic. That's how the book earns its five stars. You read a story, not a series of facts. Schoenberg is very careful not to add to much superfluous information, something many biographers might learn from. I would say it's hard to put down, but I forced myself occasionally...so that I have something to look really forward to the following day.