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Summary: I have read my friends copy of the book and I want to buy it
Review: I am Italian-American. I was born in USA but grew up in Italy and I am very familiar with all the facts that the author writes about. I am pretty confident that he has been telling us many true stories. Although Andreotti was found not guilty during last winter trial I have my own stories about want happen during his half-a-century role in the Italian Post War history that confirms the author's views. I am married to a Sicilian and I have many interesting episodes my in-laws told me about the Lima brothers and Andreotti. The author is good in making the reader understand how Sicily could have been a Paradise to live but instead it is a only a place to visit. This all because of the Mafia and corruption that marked the history of this island. Few men, Falcone, Borsellino, Della Chiesa tried really to change things but they were killed and today every time I visit Sicily I can tell you things have not changed.
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Summary: a truely gripping book, very well-written
Review: I read this book during a recent one week stay in Sicily and was entranced by it and by the many perspectives it opened, not only on culture and politics in Sicily but in Italy as a whole as well. 'Midnight in Sicily' contains many interesting sections relating to the Sicilian kitchen, classical art and important literary works related to Sicily. The most gripping part of the book, however, deals with the eternal question of the Sicilian mafia and its deadly involvement with broader Italian politics. Robb offers a picture of a political system which was (is?) thoroughly corrupt and penetrated by Cosa Nostra. One is used to read such things about present day Russia for instance, but it's amazing to find out that things in Italy are basically not much better. The astonishing thing is, of course, that Italy is still widely considered a democracy in the West. This in itself is an amazing feat. The central figure in this book is the many times former minister and prime minister Giulio Andreotti. On the plane out of Sicily, I read in the paper that fifteen years was demanded against Andreotti by the prosecution in the trial against him which is presently running. If only a fraction of what Robb implies about Andreotti is true, those fifteen years are well-deserved. A truely gripping book. Reading it in Sicily is especially recommended!
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Summary: Italy's Secret History
Review: It's difficult to add more detail about this book than Marilyn Ferdinand does in another review, but there is a quality about Peter Robb's writing which deserves emphasis for the potential reader, which is its overpowering sensuality. One evening while driving home down empty country roads, a voice on the radio began describing in the most voluptuous detail a market day in the city of Palermo. The colour, noise and smells of a city on the other side of the world filled my ears, nose and eyes. I could smell the day's catch, feel the overpowering heat and the see the colour of the filtered Sicilian sunlight, and underneath, in my guts, I felt a certain insistent menace tugging like a fish-hook. I noted the title of the book, by a fellow Australian I had never heard about or read, and sought it out. That menace, which invisibly fills its pages like a secret translation, was made patent in the details of Italy's recent other history which is laid out here. The book has the quality of a testimonial, given by an imperfect witness, which is unflinching and rings with truth.
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Summary: An Australian in Italy comes up trumps.
Review: Midnight in Sicily is a difficult book to categorise, but apleasure to read. It is essentially a history of the mafia in post-warSicily and Naples, but also contains informed reflections on Italian food, art and literature. The books main character, its unifying dark force, is Giulio Andreotti, DC mover and shaker and seven-times Prime Minister of Italy. Robb describes the incredibly complex web of influence spun by Andreotti. As a depiction of the corrosive influence of power and money in a poor country, and as a guide to the richness of Italian cuisine, art and literature, Midnight in Sicily is hard to beat.
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Summary: Appalling true story of Italy's government/mafia alliance.
Review: Midnight in Sicily is a must-read for anyone--especially any American--who has been seduced by "The Godfather" into believing that members of the mafia are outlaw heroes who keep their quarrels among themselves. Peter Robb systematically destroys such notions, and more sensitive readers might not be able to stomach the appalling bloodbath of mafiosi and innocents alike he carefully documents with near-insider agility. Equally appalling is the very real toll the mafia has taken on the fabric of Italian society, from the destruction of historic city centers and ways of life in Palermo and Naples to the undermining of honest government. We are made to feel very deeply for these losses because Robb makes us intimately acquainted with the food, art, history, and honest, good people that are variously maligned, shanghaied, and bulldozed for power and profit. Robb even has some sympathy for the "man of honor" ethos of the traditional and somewhat less destructive mafia, which ultimately led repentant mafiosi (pentiti) to take down the central villain of the story, "life senator" Giulio Andreotti. This is a fascinating book, written with passion. I loved it!
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Summary: beautifully written,intelligent and entertaining
Review: my father was born in sicily and I was there quite a few time, I think mr Robb gave us a unique and truthfull vision of this beautiful but troubled island.i wish i could tell Mr Robb that just recently I dined at the Shangai in the Vucciria and the Mission he mentione briefly in his book is doing real well, I was ther for a week volunteering and a lot of renovation and beautification was done since Mr Robb first saw the place, Padre Biagio is one of those courageus people that make miracles in a city so difficult as Palermo. Thank you Mr Robb, i enjoyed your book immensly. patrizia L.Vicenza italy
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Summary: This book IS Italy...
Review: Not knowing much before about Italian culture, history and politics, Peter Robb's wonderful book has made me feel much more enlightened. It uses as its central subject the Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian Mafia, but it goes so far beyond this. This is Robb's journey into the heart of all things Italian. Not only does he allow amazing insight and understanding into the mafia - a feat in itself - but he gives his readers knowledge about Mezzogiornio politics, art, culture, gastronomy, intelligentsia and more. His subjective overview is dotted with personalities which constantly recur throuhgout the book to haunt you, characters such as: Guilio Andreotti (former Prime Minister of Italy and member of the Cosa Nostra), Salvatore Riina (the ruthless boss of the Cosa Nostra), and the late Giovanni Falcone (the miliant Palermitan chief prosecutor who initiated the mafia maxitrial in the mid-1980s). Such is the ability of Robb as a writer, he is able to get interviews with key figures in this web of intrigue - a lot of which is reproduced in the book. He often quotes from writers such as Lampedusa and Sciascia who, we learn, knew more about Sicily than most. He puts you there, in the heart of Sicily: from his stuffy boat ride into the port at Palermo at midnight up until his final coffee at midnight in the Sant'Andrea Piazza. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in more than a historical account of Italy as it uncovers all that lies behind its mysterious beauty. Alone, this book is a triumph of the spirit, but to realise that this book was written by an outsider (an Australian) is to gasp in awe at what is a little masterpiece. 5 out of 5!
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Summary: Heroes, Villians and Food
Review: Peter Robb has written a sad, exciting, and horrifying book that looks at Sicily both in history and in the present and, often, at the same time. The book is all over the place in subject matter at times as geography mixes with food which then gets splashed with the gore of crime amongst the many trails followed. This ranging of theme would be turned to chaos by a lesser writer but Mr. Robb creates a colourful tapestry of a place that becomes intimately real to the reader. It is, without a doubt, a sad place but there are heroes shining through as well as other small moments of joy sparkling in the darkness. There is something for all readers in this book and the reader will definately be both transported and educated but, most of all, the reader will be entertained.
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Summary: Heroes, Villians and Food
Review: Peter Robb has written a sad, exciting, and horrifying book that looks at Sicily both in history and in the present and, often, at the same time. The book is all over the place in subject matter at times as geography mixes with food which then gets splashed with the gore of crime amongst the many trails followed. This ranging of theme would be turned to chaos by a lesser writer but Mr. Robb creates a colourful tapestry of a place that becomes intimately real to the reader. It is, without a doubt, a sad place but there are heroes shining through as well as other small moments of joy sparkling in the darkness. There is something for all readers in this book and the reader will definately be both transported and educated but, most of all, the reader will be entertained.
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Summary: Italy's Dysfunctional Social Contract
Review: Peter Robb's memoir of time spent in the Italian mezzogiorno - chiefly Sicily, but also Naples - is partly a travel book, partly a commentary on art (especially the painter Renato Guttuso) and on literature (particularly the novelists Giuseppe di Lampedusa and Leonardo Sciascia), and partly a celebration of gastronomy. Mostly, however, it is about the power of organized crime in Italy, especially in the south, and its peculiar relationship (parasitic and symbiotic) with the Italian government. The power of the mafia and camorra arose from the historic misrule of the mezzogiorno. Robb discusses their remote origins, but concentrates on events since the Allied liberation of Sicily in 1943. Mussolini had attempted to suppress the mafia, and both its Sicilian and American branches (the latter represented by "Lucky" Luciano) accordingly aided the U.S. army in driving out the fascists. The results, like those of U.S. aid to Islamic mujahideen resisting Soviet occupation in Afghanistan, demonstrate the way in which such alliances of convenience and "proxy warfare" can backfire. Robb describes how the Sicilian mafia subsequently established ties with the Christian Democratic Party (democristiani), with the tacit approval of the U.S. government and the Roman Catholic church, as an ally in the anti-communist cause. Even as this was taking place, mafiosi strengthened their connections with organized crime in other parts of the world, including the United States, and garnered unprecedented new wealth in the international drug trade. Necessary money-laundering was accomplished through penetration of the banking industry, both in Italy and abroad. Corruption of the government proceeded all the way to the top, including the prime minister, Giulio Andreotti. All governments, even corrupt and tyrannical ones, have some sort of social contract with the people governed under them. The democratic ideal holds that this should be one openly and freely reached. Dictatorships and absolute monarchies attain their social contracts by a mixture of demagogy and repression, so that the "consent of the governed" is obtained by combined elements of fraud and force. The Italian case is an especially strange one, in that government and organized crime have become so intimately connected as to appear almost two sides of the same coin. Albert Jay Nock, in "Our Enemy the State," wryly pointed out that many of the things governments do would be considered crimes if done by ordinary individuals. If the state takes life, it is called war or capital punishment. If you take life, it is called murder. If the state takes property under the threat of force, it is called confiscation or taxation; if you take property under the threat of force, it is called robbery or extortion. When the state prints banknotes that have no value other than that assigned by the state, these are called fiat money. When you print them, they are called counterfeit. The state, argued Nock, does not want to suppress crime; it wants a state monopoly on it. Many people in the south of Italy take this cynical view of their government, and have good historical reason for so doing. If rulers do not regard government as a public trust, the ruled see no reason to do so either. When government has no moral legitimacy, organized crime becomes an alternative system of social control. As Robb's account makes clear, the mafia is and always has been both a competitor and collaborator with the state. ... It is a cautionary tale about what happens to the social contract as a result of the loss of public trust, and how nearly impossible it is to restore it. "Midnight in Sicily" is a fascinating book. I did not find its discursive and digressive style as frustrating as some reviewers here, although I confess to finding some of Robb's verbal and typographic idiosyncrasies irritating. The book's one telling defect is its lack of an index, which would have been quite useful.
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