{"product_id":"yakuza-a-400-year-history-of-the-japanese-underworld-by-andrew-rankin","title":"Yakuza: A 400-Year History of the Japanese Underworld by Andrew Rankin","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe definitive, utterly engrossing history of Japanese organized crime, from the samurai era to the present.\u003c\/b\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nJapan’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.\r\n\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\nThis 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.\r\n\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\nIn 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.\r\n\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\nFeaturing 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.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Andrew Rankin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57230537916681,"sku":"9781783967629","price":17.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0939\/6181\/4281\/files\/9781783967629.jpg?v=1785494815","url":"https:\/\/bookstation.ie\/products\/yakuza-a-400-year-history-of-the-japanese-underworld-by-andrew-rankin","provider":"Bookstation","version":"1.0","type":"link"}