Gomorrah: A Personal Journey into the Violent International Empire of Naples' Organized Crime System
by Roberto Saviano
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Book Summary Information
Author: Roberto SavianoTranslator: Virginia Jewiss
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-11-25
ISBN: 0312427794
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Picador
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780312427795
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Gomorrah: A Personal Journey into the Violent International Empire of Naples' Organized Crime System
Book Review: "Nothing is lost. Nothing is created. Everything is transformed."
Summary: 4 Stars
In Gomorrah, Saviano wades through the gates of hell, revealing the extent of criminal enterprise in southern Naples, the long tentacles of the Camorra infecting every aspect of business from the port of Naples to the interior. Inland, cement cities house men and women who work long days in fashion sweatshops, where every aspect of life is controlled by the Camorra, from the lowliest waiter to the massive factories that produce counterfeit materials. Saviano begins this undercover journey at the port, where the great engine of Chinese business ingenuity gobbles opportunity, learning, adapting, growing, replacing. For every legal shipment of goods, there are shadow shipments headed toward a greedy market, an endless network of goods and services, a fusion of fashion and greed, the profit going to the quickest and the best.
This elaborate business network is also social, entire families in service on one level or another, women as well as men. Production never ceases, the workers hunkered down in their cement hives, creating goods, every phase of production strictly monitored for maximum profit. This expose is like a vast sea roiling with activity, collateral deaths absorbed by the whole, warring factions breaking out in bursts of gunfire from AK-47s, bodies scattered like so much refuse, expeditiously swept away so business as usual can resume. From the Port and the intricate partnerships of fashion and export to the cities where product is manufactured, Saviano describes all as though his eyes a camera, intimate photographs of the power structure, the deals, the graft, the rise and fall of personalities, the purging of those who dare interfere, including powerful government officials.
In this marrying of crime to the global economy, there is a pervasive sense of inevitability, humanity bred out of a society driven by commerce, except the few who rise to fame by virtue of their power, only to disappear, replaced by others, the ebb and flow of greed and expedience. Violence goes hand in hand with life lived on such terms, a killing field quickly obliterated by goods in transport. Saviano doesn't shirk from names or detail, either: "I know how economics originate and where their smell comes from." From fashion to building, each part is integral to profit: "Cement makers create a supply system that keeps the clan in touch with contractors, linking to every possible deal, with extortion a secondary service." The implications of this book are staggering, a vision of the future stripped bare, every level of society infected by greed: "There is not a minute in which the business of living does not seem like a life sentence." This is a story that should be told. Luan Gaines/2008.
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