Yakuza: A 400-Year History of the Japanese Underworld

Andrew Rankin

Yakuza: A 400-Year History of the Japanese Underworld

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SKU: 9781783968206
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'Gripping and revealing ... A must read.' Ryan Gingeras, author of Mafia: A Global History

The definitive, utterly engrossing history of Japanese organized crime, from the samurai era to the present


Japan’s gangster groups, known collectively as the yakuza, are among the oldest underworld societies in the world. With military-style organization and a code of absolute obedience, they have run Japan’s black markets for centuries. They have remained strikingly conspicuous in Japanese society, and as a cultural force beyond Japan, with movies and video games celebrating their exploits globally. However, yakuza is still a word that cannot be uttered easily in polite conversation in Japan.

This is a mob story like no other. The yakuza’s main business activities – control of gambling games, protection rackets, and the sex trade – are typical of other mafia groups, but their culture and mythology are distinctively Japanese, and their history is inseparable from the social transformations of Japan over the centuries.

In this gripping popular history, Andrew Rankin tells the full story of the yakuza for the first time, from their emergence out of seventeenth-century samurai gang culture to the present day. He draws on material from rare, banned volumes concealed from authorities in private mobster libraries; historical Japanese-language source material hitherto unavailable in English; and extensive interviews with old gangsters.


Featuring a lively cast of extortionists, smugglers, hit men and corporate crime lords, Yakuza is a fascinating tour of Japan’s sprawling mob syndicates and the traditions with which they are so deeply intertwined. This will be the definitive work on the subject for years to come. 

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‘The best book in English on this fascinating and misunderstood subject... Rich in incident and anecdote, Rankin’s account of the tattooed finger-choppers also serves as a thrilling alternative history of modern Japan.’ Richard Lloyd Parry, author of People Who Eat Darkness

‘Elegantly written and richly informed, this is essential reading for anyone interested in Japan, crime, or the underworld.’ Federico Varese, author of Mafia Life

‘The yakuza book that everyone has been waiting for. The clear-eyed narrative is studded with vivid vignettes and pen portraits... Yakuza is both shrewd and engrossing.’ John Dickie, author of Cosa Nostra