John Dickie has 3 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 2 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4★ across 5 ratings. The most-rated is The Craft.
The Craft
Summary
Insiders call it the Craft. Discover the fascinating true story of one of the most influential and misunderstood secret brotherhoods in modern society. Founded in London in 1717 as a way of binding men in fellowship, Freemasonry proved so addictive that within two decades it had spread across the globe. Masonic influence became pervasive. Under George Washington, the Craft became a creed for the new American nation. Masonic networks held the British empire together. Under Napoleon, the Craft became a tool of authoritarianism and then a cover for revolutionary conspiracy. Both the Mormon Church and the Sicilian mafia owe their origins to Freemasonry. Yet the Masons were as feared as they were influential. In the eyes of the Catholic Church, Freemasonry has always been a den of devil-worshippers. For Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco, the Lodges spread the diseases of pacifism, socialism, and Jewish influence and so had to be crushed. Freemasonry's story yokes together Winston Churchill and Walt Disney; Wolfgang Mozart and Shaquille O'Neal; Benjamin Franklin and Buzz Aldrin; Rudyard Kipling and "Buffalo Bill" Cody; Duke Ellington and the duke of Wellington. John Dickie's The Craft is an enthralling exploration of a the world's most famous and misunderstood secret brotherhood, a movement that not only helped to forge modern society, but has substantial contemporary influence, with 400,000 members in Britain, more than a million in the USA, and around six million across the world.
©2020 John Dickie (P)2020 Hachette Audio
Cosa Nostra: A History of the Sicilian Mafia
Summary
Cosa Nostra is the compelling story of the Sicilian mafia, the world's most famous, most secretive and most misunderstood criminal fraternity. The mafia has been given many names since it was founded 140 years ago: the Sect, the Brotherhood, the Honoured Society and now Cosa Nostra. Yet as times have changed, the mafia's subtle and bloody methods have remained the same. Now, for the first time, Cosa Nostra reconstructs the complete history of the Sicilian mafia from its origins to the present day, from the lemon groves and sulphur mines of Sicily to the streets of Manhattan. Cosa Nostra is a definitive history, rich in atmosphere and with the narrative pace of the best detective fiction, and has been updated to make it the most vital contemporary account of the mafia ever published. The mob genre has finally grown up.
©2004 John Dickie (P)2020 Hodder & Stoughton Limited
Blood Brotherhoods
Summary
Mafia. Camorra. 'Ndrangheta. The Sicilian mafia, known as Cosa Nostra, is far from being Italy's only dangerous criminal fraternity. The country hosts two other major mafias: the Camorra from Naples; and, from the poor and isolated region of Calabria, the mysterious 'Ndrangheta, which has now risen to become the most powerful mob group active today. Since they emerged, the mafias have all corrupted Italy's institutions, drastically curtailed the life chances of its citizens, evaded justice, and set up their own self-interested meddling as an alternative to the courts. Yet each of these brotherhoods has its own methods, its own dark rituals, its own style of ferocity. Each is uniquely adapted to corrupt and exploit its own specific environment, as it collaborates with, learns from, and goes to war with the other mafias. Today, the shadow of organized crime hangs over a country racked by debt, political paralysis, and widespread corruption. The 'Ndrangheta controls much of Europe's wholesale cocaine trade and, by some estimates, three percent of Italy's total GDP. Blood Brotherhoods traces the origins of this national malaise back to Italy's roots as a united country in the 19th century and shows how political violence incubated underworld sects among the lemon groves of Palermo, the fetid slums of Naples, and the harsh mountain villages of Calabria. Blood Brotherhoods is an audiobook of breathtaking ambition, tracing for the first time the interlocking story of all three mafias from their origins to the present day. John Dickie is recognized in Italy as one of the foremost historians of organized crime. Here, he blends archival detective work, passionate narrative, and shrewd analysis to bring a unique criminal ecosystem - and the three terrifying criminal brotherhoods that have evolved within it - to life.
©2011, 2013, 2014 John Dickie (P)2020 Hachette Audio