"For centuries, Sicilian "men of honor" have fought the controls of government. Between 1820 and 1860, rebellions shook the island as these men joined with Sicily's intellectuals in the struggle for independence from the Bourbon Kingdom of Naples. This lively account - the first to locate the emergence and evolution of the mafia in historical perspective - describes how those rebellions led to the birth of the modern mafia and traces the increasing influence of organized crime on the island."--BOOK JACKET.