Yakuza: Japan's Criminal Underworld, Expanded Edition
by University of California Press

	Yakuza: Japan's Criminal Underworld, Expanded Edition
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Book Description

Known for their striking full-body tattoos and severed fingertips, Japan's gangsters comprise a criminal class eighty thousand strong--more than four times the size of the American Mafia. Despite their criminal nature, the yakuza are accepted by fellow Japanese to a degree guaranteed to shock most Westerners. Here is the first book to reveal the extraordinary reach of Japan's Mafia. Originally published in 1986, <I>Yakuza </I>was so controversial in Japan that it could not be published there for five years. But in the West it has long served as the standard reference on Japanese organized crime, inspiring novels, screenplays, and criminal investigations. David E. Kaplan and Alec Dubro spent nearly two decades conducting hundreds of interviews with everyone from street-level hoodlums and police to Japan's most powerful godfathers. The result is a searing indictment of corruption in the world's second-largest economy.
This updated, expanded, and thoroughly revised edition of <I>Yakuza </I>tells the full story of Japan's remarkable crime syndicates, from their feudal start as bands of medieval outlaws to their emergence as billion-dollar investors in real estate, big business, art, and more.

Reader Reviews

Great book. To those who say its communist, I ask several questions:

-Its from good ol' UC Berkeley. What did you expect?
-Have you ever been to the bay area? What did you expect?

This book is just a part of the great San Francisco Bay Area culture. People should learn to appreciate that this is simply how we think here in the Bay.

Otherwise a fascinating look at the Yakuza.