The Economist Best Books of 2026 So Far

“A book of such hugely ambitious scope . . . Gingeras is good on ways in which crime responds to the needs of particular cultures at particular times . . . and deploys contextual detail to vivid effect . . . Gingeras paints a convincing picture of an interconnected, increasingly diversified, and truly global business which is tightly and apparently irrevocably intertwined, in so many different ways, with the apparatus of the state itself.” —Financial Times

“Impressive . . . Gingeras considers the rise of clientelist crime and corruption in southern Italy, the US, Southeast Asia, and Latin America from the early nineteenth century to the present. He offers a Damon Runyonesque gallery of shakedown artists, payola sharks, and nickel-and-dime mobsters. . . . Well-researched . . . Mafia is an excellent history of all things murderous and mobster.” —Times Literary Supplement (UK)

“Ambitious . . . Gingeras writes well and joins the historical dots. . . . For those who want to know how mafias began—especially those as fascinated by it all as Gingeras—this book may prove to be an offer they can’t refuse.” —The Daily Telegraph

“Professor and historian Ryan Gingeras charts a steady course between academic respectability and formulating the odd unexpected sentence that will rock you on your heels . . . . The predominant tenor of this impressive book is not doom and gloom but sober realism. Mafias will be with us until men turn into angels.”  —Sydney Morning Herald

“An engaging book . . . Mafias have ‘reflected’ and ‘helped define the making of the modern world,’ Mr Gingeras contends, taking readers from classical Rome to modern Las Vegas to bolster his argument.” —The Economist

“A wide-ranging history . . . A revealing study of organized crime and its many forms.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Historian Gingeras offers a historical deep dive into the murky world of gangland, from the gritty streets of the Five Points area of early twentieth-century New York City to ravaged, post-WWII Japan; from drug running to human trafficking. A valuable historical reference on organized crime.” —Booklist

“This is gripping, essential, global, and just plain fascinating.” —Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of The World: A Family History of Humanity and Jerusalem: The Biography

“Drawing on more than a decade of research to uncover the suppressed underworld history of mafias, historian Ryan Gingeras presents his findings in this global history of elusive organized crime. . . . From ancient bandits to modern-day cartels, the history of the underworld reveals the true history of a nation, one that is often suppressed. . . . The sweeping narrative follows the evolution of the criminal underworld across the globe.” —Press Association

“From ancient bandits to modern hackers, organized criminals have long been unheralded architects of the evolution of state and society. Ryan Gingeras offers us an important and eye-opening guide to the way the underworld and upperworld shape each other.” —Mark Galeotti, author of Homo Criminalis: How Crime Organizes the World