The author aptly characterizes this work as a "series of itineraries" by which the reader is made familiar with much of the history of Manhattan Island by being led to the very spots associated with important historical events. But this book is much more. It is surprising and refreshing to read a defense of the Five Points from the pen of so intelligent a witness. We who are deeply interested in New York history thank the author for the facts which he has collected. There is a unique arrangement of the interesting, instructive, and inspiring matter which makes it a literary work of a high order. And: the book has a distinct purpose - the interesting of the people in the history and historic localities of the city and the awakening in them of civic pride and affection.

From the beginnings of big-city police work to the rise of the Mafia, Rogues' Gallery is a colorful and captivating history of crime and punishment in the bustling streets of Old New York. Rogues' Gallery is a sweeping, epic tale of two revolutions, one feeding off the other, that played out on the streets of New York City during an era known as the Gilded Age. For centuries, New York had been a haven of crime. A thief or murderer not caught in the act nearly always got away. But in the early 1870s, an Irish cop by the name of Thomas Byrnes developed new ways to catch criminals. Mug shots and daily lineups helped witnesses point out culprits; the famed rogues' gallery allowed police to track repeat offenders; and the third-degree interrogation method induced recalcitrant crooks to confess. Byrnes worked cases methodically, interviewing witnesses, analyzing crime scenes, and developing theories that helped close the books on previously unsolvable crimes. Yet as policing became ever more specialized and efficient, crime itself began to change. Robberies became bolder and more elaborate, murders grew more ruthless and macabre, and the street gangs of old transformed into hierarchal criminal enterprises, giving birth to organized crime, including the Mafia. As the decades unfolded, corrupt cops and clever criminals at times blurred together, giving way to waves of police reform at the hands of men like Theodore Roosevelt. This is a tale of unforgettable characters: Marm Mandelbaum, a matronly German-immigrant woman who paid off cops and politicians to protect her empire of fencing stolen goods; "Clubber" Williams, a sadistic policeman who wielded a twenty-six-inch club against suspects, whether they were guilty or not; Danny Driscoll, the murderous leader of the Irish Whyos Gang and perhaps the first crime boss of New York; Big Tim Sullivan, the corrupt Tammany Hall politician who shielded the Whyos from the law; the suave Italian Paul Kelly and the thuggish Jewish gang leader Monk Eastman, whose rival crews engaged in brawls and gunfights all over the Lower East Side; and Joe Petrosino, a Sicilian-born detective who brilliantly pursued early Mafioso and Black Hand extortionists until a fateful trip back to his native Italy. Set against the backdrop of New York's Gilded Age, with its extremes of plutocratic wealth, tenement poverty, and rising social unrest, Rogues' Gallery is a fascinating story of the origins of modern policing and organized crime in an eventful era with echoes for our own time.

In July 1863 New York City experienced widespread rioting unparalleled in the history of the nation. Here for the first time is a scholarly analysis of the Draft Riots, dealing with motives and with the reasons for the recurring civil disorders in nineteenth-century New York: the appalling living conditions, the corruption of the civic government, and the geographical and economic factors that led up to the social upheaval.

At the end of the nineteenth century European pimps and 'white slavers' established a hugely successful global market for commercial sex and for three turbulent decades before the First World War, Joseph Silver was central to this hidden world of betrayal, intrigue, lust and sexual slavery. Burglar, gun-runner and trafficker in women on four continents, Silver was a disturbed adolescent, youthful predator and adult misogynist whose notoriety was captured in the most confidential correspondence of a dozen countries in the western world. But what those in charge of law-enforcement agencies kept to themselves was how their officers had attempted to use Silver as an informer to infiltrate syndicates, only to have him outwit them as he moved in the dangerous space between police and prostitutes. In this brilliant study, Charles van Onselen situates the private life of one man amidst the demi-monde of the Atlantic world and casts a brilliant light on the most infamous serial killer of all time - Jack the Ripper.

This comprehensive and authoratative four-volume work surveys the history and philosophy of crime, punishment, and criminal justice institutions in America from colonial times to the present.