 "Great Book" | 2008-06-12 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1JRXO0VDRAJPK |
| This is a very well-written and interesting book. It's not a page turner but is very entertaining. If you like mafia books or movies...you will love this book. |
| |
| "Great story" | 2007-04-28 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1DR221K2OHV02 |
This book is fantastically written. I picked it up in the book store and could not put it down. From Italy to his death, this book tells the entire story in fantastic detail. Without restating what other reviewers have already stated, I just wanted to say that this is one of the best biographies I have ever read. Meticulously researched and written, the details bring the book to life, making you feel like you are living in the 1920's, viewing everything. The book also does a good job of telling the story of the rival gangs and gangleaders in Chicago, like Bugs Moran and the Irish, as well as the contemporary politicians of the day. From the shootouts to the drug running, the bootlegging to the day-to-day of Al Capone, this book nearly reads like an action novel!
Also, having lived in Chicago for two years, I really enjoyed the references to the neighborhoods and streets.
Highly recommended. |
| |
| "Florida turns "Big AL" into small potatoes" | 2007-01-27 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2QZHE6Z3931LA |
| this book gives an interesting aspect to the Capone story particularly in regard to Capone's Florida excursion. It seems Al went to Florida to escape the "heat" of Chicago but found the heat and humidity of Florida eventually put him in jail. The IRS investigated his holdings and possesions in Miami and Big Al found that all the rackets were already covered by business developers from Ohio. These snowbirds once they got a handle on Florida's vice industries weren't about to tolerate Capone and the attention he could bring to some of their more dubious business enterprises.In alot of works on Capone the writers make the point solely that there was moral outrage and this was enough for the state of Florida to want Capone out.However from the Schoenberg book read there is alot more involved in the reasons for the riddance of Capone. It seems his high profile was not welcome because it brought to much attention to the fishbowl and no respectable fish wants to be seen devouring the smaller ones. |
| |
| "This Is How A Biography Should Be Done" | 2006-08-05 |
| - Reviewed By User: A28WJUJF6D2ULA |
Before I say much else, let me congratulate the author, Robert Schoenberg, on this work. This study of Al Capone is an elevation of the standards of biographical presentation, and I found it as enjoyable as it was informative. The word "fearless" also comes to mind, and by that I refer to Schoenberg's capacity to advocate his own carefully-formulated views on the real Al Capone, behind the enduring legend, the misunderstandings, and the deliberate misinformation long spread as character assassination.
Exhaustively-researched, Mr. Capone---the book---does everything but bring Mr. Capone---the man---from his time into ours. Capone was comparatively no monster, nor was he a saint. He was no more ruthless than circumstances in his business ever required him to be, and was by degrees shrewd, wise, cautious, generous, fun-loving, tough, pious, forgiving, sadistic, kind, and patriotic. Capone's philanthropy has never received the coverage it deserves, and his philandering has been too focused upon. Capone, let's not forget to mention here, made his name and rose to power on the strength of his talents as a peacemaker among the warring ethnic gangs of the east coast. A deft negotiator who could be trusted to deal fairly with all sides and to keep his word when given, Capone had far more friends than enemies in the underworld, and it was the strength of these alliances that he drew upon in the 1920's when he made his move to become the top power-broker in the city of Chicago: not the most powerful underworld figure, THEE most powerful person in America's second-city.
Capone was a larger than life figure, and a man with as many weaknesses as talents. Foremost among his weak points was his all-possessing vanity. This vanity drove him to revel in the publicity and fame he both intentionally created and magnified via his extensive influence on the Chicago press. (It's said by 1930 there wasn't a Chicago newsman worth his salt who hadn't had dinner with Al Capone.) This desire for the spotlight put Capone into international headlines, and made him the focus of seemingly every legitimate law enforcement agent with any ambition. Schoenberg's emphasis on the role played by members of the Treasury Department, men unknown today in comparison to the self-promoting Elliot Ness, a being every bit as obsessed with his own celebrity as was his foe Al Capone, is especially refreshing.
Schoenberg portrays Capone's pragmatism and realistic attitude about the conviction for tax evasion that eventually sent him to prison, first in Georgia, later in Alcatraz. Beneath his bravado ("I plan to spend a third of my sentence asleep.") Capone made the best of the bitter hand he was dealt. We come in the last chapters to meet the most surprising incarnation of "Scarface Al" Capone, that of Capone the model inmate, a man too learned in hard wisdom to make trouble for himself among either the prison population, or those who governed it. Finally we see the sad final years of the one-time boss of Chicago, as he wastes away on a modest Florida estate, a victim of cardiac troubles and neurosyphilis. One final myth, that Capone's phobic reaction to needles prevented his receiving treatment for syphilis, is exploded, and the truth revealed at last: this being that because of America's involvement in the Second World War the penicillin used in the treatment of syphilis was virtually impossible to attain on the homefront, even for the dying, and even for a legend like Al Capone.
Mr. Capone is among the best examples of biography I've ever read, and should be studied for what it brings to the field of research, as well as for its presentation of an oft-mythologized man. Easily a five-star book that I'd recommend without question. It's not only great, it's good. |
| |
| "Mr. Schoenberg Does Mr. Capone Right!" | 2003-05-31 |
| - Reviewed By mdog_921 |
| Building and expanding upon the solid foundation previously laid by Pasley and Kobler and correcting old errors, and guided by the likes of top-notch Capone experts Mark Levell and Bill Balsamo, Schoenberg has crafted one of the best Capone biographies to date, far superior to Bergreen's ludicrous fluff. The author puts perhaps too much faith in the questionable testimony of "Born Again" hoodlum George Meyer but that is abbreviated and an almost a minor aside in this comprehensive, well-researched bio of America's all-time greatest gangster. |
| |
| "Outstanding" | 2001-08-04 |
| - Reviewed By dan2439 |
| 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. |
| |
| "Ultimate in Capone truth!" | 1998-08-19 |
| - Reviewed By Anonymous |
| I really enjoyed this book.I enjoyed it so much, i read it three times!Blows the pants off the other books which are loaded with fiction.He also gets his dates right which to me is very important.I being an Al Capone collecting enthusiast find it much better than Mr.Bergreen's book. If you want a book on Capone and you want the facts straight get this book now!!!!! |
| |
| "Neither Godfather Nor Good Guy" | 1998-05-06 |
| - Reviewed By mkreca |
| While attending a 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 positi! ve and uplifting all play a somehow vitally necessary, if often misunderstood, role in the continually-unfolding American experience. |
| |
| "Brilliant!" | |
| - Reviewed By Anonymous |
| 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. |
| |
Expedited Available
