Diego Gambetta's Books

Codes of the Underworld

How Criminals Communicate

By: Diego Gambetta

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Codes of the Underworld

How Criminals Communicate

By: Diego Gambetta

sociology.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

368

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0691152470

ISBN 13

9780691152479

The Sicilian Mafia

The Business of Private Protection

By: Diego Gambetta

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Sicilian Mafia

The Business of Private Protection

By: Diego Gambetta

Blood ceremonies, obscure symbols, elaborate codes, brutal executions: the arcane remnants of a defunct culture? The Mafia, this book suggests, is not nearly as bizarre as all that, not nearly as remote as we might think. In fact, as Diego Gambetta's analysis unfolds, the Mafia begins to resemble any other business. In a society where trust is in short supply, this business sells protection, a guarantee of safe conduct for commercial and social transactions. It grudgingly shares the market with other concerns like itself, of which it is merely the most successful. The author develops his elegant economic theory with ample evidence, much of it based on the remarkable work done by Judge Giovanni Falcone and his colleagues in Palermo and Agrigento in the 1980s. Drawing on the confessions of eight Mafiosi and the trials their revelations triggered, Gambetta is able to explain all manner of peculiar Mafia marketing strategies that have been endlessly misinterpreted in the past. He makes illuminating - and unexpected - comparisons between the business of protection and ordinary industries, such as automotive insurance, and advertising. And he teases out the subtle distinctions between protection and extortion, in which the protector himself poses a threat. This new approach reshapes traditional interpretations of the Mafia - its origins, functions, and social consequences. Applying informal economic analysis, Gambetta shows how such a recognized evil can perform a real service, and how such a recognizable service can inflict great harm on a society.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

350

Publisher

Harvard University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0674807421

ISBN 13

9780674807426

Codes of the Underworld

How Criminals Communicate

By: Diego Gambetta

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Codes of the Underworld

How Criminals Communicate

By: Diego Gambetta

The signs and signals of criminal communication How do criminals communicate with each other? Unlike the rest of us, people planning crimes can't freely advertise their goods and services, nor can they rely on formal institutions to settle disputes and certify quality. They face uniquely intense dilemmas as they grapple with the basic problems of whom to trust, how to make themselves trusted, and how to handle information without being detected by rivals or police. In this book, one of the world's leading scholars of the mafia ranges from ancient Rome to the gangs of modern Japan, from the prisons of Western countries to terrorist and pedophile rings, to explain how despite these constraints, many criminals successfully stay in business. Diego Gambetta shows that as villains balance the lure of criminal reward against the fear of dire punishment, they are inspired to unexpected feats of subtlety and ingenuity in communication. He uncovers the logic of the often bizarre ways in which inveterate and occasional criminals solve their dilemmas, such as why the tattoos and scars etched on a criminal's body function as lines on a professional résumé, why inmates resort to violence to establish their position in the prison pecking order, and why mobsters are partial to nicknames and imitate the behavior they see in mafia movies. Even deliberate self-harm and the disclosure of their crimes are strategically employed by criminals to convey important messages. By deciphering how criminals signal to each other in a lawless universe, this gruesomely entertaining and incisive book provides a quantum leap in our ability to make sense of their actions.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

363

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1400833612

ISBN 13

9781400833610

Engineers of Jihad

The Curious Connection between Violent Extremism and Education

By: Diego Gambetta,Steffen Hertog

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Engineers of Jihad

The Curious Connection between Violent Extremism and Education

By: Diego Gambetta,Steffen Hertog

A groundbreaking investigation into why so many Islamic radicals are engineers The violent actions of a few extremists can alter the course of history, yet there persists a yawning gap between the potential impact of these individuals and what we understand about them. In Engineers of Jihad, Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog uncover two unexpected facts, which they imaginatively leverage to narrow that gap: they find that a disproportionate share of Islamist radicals come from an engineering background, and that Islamist and right-wing extremism have more in common than either does with left-wing extremism, in which engineers are absent while social scientists and humanities students are prominent. Searching for an explanation, they tackle four general questions about extremism: Under which socioeconomic conditions do people join extremist groups? Does the profile of extremists reflect how they self-select into extremism or how groups recruit them? Does ideology matter in sorting who joins which group? Lastly, is there a mindset susceptible to certain types of extremism? Using rigorous methods and several new datasets, they explain the link between educational discipline and type of radicalism by looking at two key factors: the social mobility (or lack thereof) for engineers in the Muslim world, and a particular mindset seeking order and hierarchy that is found more frequently among engineers. Engineers' presence in some extremist groups and not others, the authors argue, is a proxy for individual traits that may account for the much larger question of selective recruitment to radical activism. Opening up markedly new perspectives on the motivations of political violence, Engineers of Jihad yields unexpected answers about the nature and emergence of extremism.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

215

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1400888123

ISBN 13

9781400888122

The Sicilian Mafia

The Business of Private Protection

By: Diego Gambetta

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Sicilian Mafia

The Business of Private Protection

By: Diego Gambetta

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

350

Publisher

Harvard University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0674807421

ISBN 13

9780674807426

Were They Pushed Or Did They Jump?

Individual Decision Mechanisms In Education

By: Diego Gambetta

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Were They Pushed Or Did They Jump?

Individual Decision Mechanisms In Education

By: Diego Gambetta

Like few other decisions in life, educational choices must be made by virtually every-one growing up in industrial societies. The consequences of these choices for individual lives are momentous, yet decisions about schooling can be treacherous. They are made during the teen years, at a time when personal preferences are unstable and there is littl

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

182

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1000011348

ISBN 13

9781000011340

Engineers of Jihad

The Curious Connection between Violent Extremism and Education

By: Diego Gambetta,Steffen Hertog

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Engineers of Jihad

The Curious Connection between Violent Extremism and Education

By: Diego Gambetta,Steffen Hertog

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

214

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

069117850X

ISBN 13

9780691178509

Were They Pushed Or Did They Jump?

Individual Decision Mechanisms In Education

By: Diego Gambetta

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Were They Pushed Or Did They Jump?

Individual Decision Mechanisms In Education

By: Diego Gambetta

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

182

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1000011348

ISBN 13

9781000011340

Streetwise

How Taxi Drivers Establish Customer's Trustworthiness

By: Diego Gambetta,Heather Hamill

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Streetwise

How Taxi Drivers Establish Customer's Trustworthiness

By: Diego Gambetta,Heather Hamill

A taxi driver's life is dangerous work. Picking up a bad customer can leave the driver in a vulnerable position, and erring even once can prove fatal. To protect themselves, taxi drivers must quickly and accurately assess the trustworthiness of complete strangers. In Streetwise, Diego Gambetta and Heather Hamill take this predicament as a prototypical example of many trust decisions, where people must act on limited information and judge another person's trustworthiness based on signs that may or may not be honest indicators of that person's character or intent. Gambetta and Hamill analyze the behavior of cabbies in two cities where driving a taxi is especially perilous: New York City, where drivers have been the targets of frequent and violent robberies, and Belfast, Northern Ireland, a divided metropolis where drivers have been swept up in the region's sectarian violence. Based on in-depth ethnographic research, Streetwise lets drivers describe in their own words how they seek to determine the threat posed by each potential passenger. The drivers' decisions about whom to trust are treated in conjunction with the "sign-management" strategies of their prospective passengers—both genuine passengers who try to persuade drivers of their trustworthiness and the villains who mimic them. As the theory that guides this research suggests, drivers look for signs that correlate closely with trustworthiness but are difficult for an impostor to mimic. A smile, a business suit, or a skullcap alone do not reassure drivers, as any criminal could easily wear them. Only if attached to other signs—a middle-aged woman, a business address, or a synagogue—are they persuasive. Drivers are adept at deciphering deceitful signals, but trickery is occasionally undetectable, so they must adopt defensive strategies to minimize their exposure to harm. In Belfast, where drivers are locals and often have histories of paramilitary involvement, "macho" posturing often serves to deter would-be criminals, while New York cabbies, mostly immigrants who view themselves as outsiders, try simply to minimize the damage from attacks by appeasing robbers and carrying only small amounts of cash. For most people, erring in a trust decision leads to a broken heart or a few dollars lost. For cab drivers, such an error could mean losing their lives. The way drivers negotiate these high stakes offers us vivid insight into how to determine another person's trustworthiness. Written with clarity and color, Streetwise invites the reader to ride shotgun with cabbies as they grapple with a question of relevance to us all: which signs of trustworthiness can we really trust? A Volume in the Russell Sage Foundation Series on Trust

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

258

Publisher

Russell Sage Foundation

Published Date

ISBN 10

1610442350

ISBN 13

9781610442350

Streetwise

How Taxi Drivers Establish Customer's Trustworthiness

By: Diego Gambetta,Heather Hamill

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Streetwise

How Taxi Drivers Establish Customer's Trustworthiness

By: Diego Gambetta,Heather Hamill

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

257

Publisher

Russell Sage Foundation

Published Date

ISBN 10

0871543095

ISBN 13

9780871543097

Book's by Diego Gambetta

Codes of the Underworld

Codes of the Underworld

The Sicilian Mafia

The Sicilian Mafia

Codes of the Underworld

Codes of the Underworld

Engineers of Jihad

Engineers of Jihad

The Sicilian Mafia

The Sicilian Mafia

Were They Pushed Or Did They Jump?

Were They Pushed Or Did They Jump?

Engineers of Jihad

Engineers of Jihad

Were They Pushed Or Did They Jump?

Were They Pushed Or Did They Jump?

Streetwise

Streetwise

Streetwise

Streetwise

Username

Password

Username

Password

Password again

Birthday

Email