The Fox and the Flies: The World of Joseph Silver, Racketeer and PsychopathJonathan Cape, 2007 - 646 páginas The nineteenth-century was the age of industry, witnessing extraordinary advances in manufacturing, trade and communications. Exploiting the new infrastructure of railways, steamships and telegraph systems, European pimps and 'white slave' traffickers were hugely successful in establishing an integrated global market for commercial sex. In the newly developed industrialised economy, criminal syndicates in capital cities such as Buenos Aires, Cape Town, New York, London and Rio de Janeiro, were able to commission the seduction or rape of women by agents in under-developed parts of Europe and 'export' them as prostitutes to meet the insatiable demand for sexual services throughout the Atlantic world. For three turbulent decades before the First World War Joseph Silver - brothel-owner, pimp and trafficker in women on four continents - was central to this hidden world of betrayal, intrigue, lust and sexual slavery. Burglar, gun-runner, jewel-thief, rapist, safe-cracker and sodomist, Silver's notoriety was captured in the most confidential correspondence of a dozen countries in the western world. What those in charge of law-enforcement agencies kept to themselves, however, was how their officers had attempted to use Silver as an informer to infiltrate syndicates built on 'vice' only to have him outwit them as he moved in the dangerous space between police and prostitutes. A disturbed adolescent, youthful predator and adult misogynist driven by dark biblical and medieval obsessions, Silver's mental universe remained largely hidden from his family, other gangsters, and police handlers. In this first reconstruction of the life of a dangerous psychopath, Charles van Onselen situates the private life of one man amidst the demi-monde of the Atlantic world to identify the most infamous serial killer of all time - for Joseph Silver's darkest secret of all lay in London, in Whitechapel, in the autumn of 1888. |
Contenido
Introduction I | 1 |
Kielce 18681884 | 12 |
London 18851889 | 39 |
Derechos de autor | |
Otras 28 secciones no mostradas
Otras ediciones - Ver todas
The Fox and the Flies: The Secret Life of a Grotesque Master Criminal Charles van Onselen Vista previa limitada - 2007 |
The Fox and the Flies: The Secret Life of a Grotesque Master Criminal Charles van Onselen Vista previa limitada - 2010 |
The Fox and the Flies: The Secret Life of a Grotesque Master Criminal Charles van Onselen Vista de fragmentos - 2007 |
Términos y frases comunes
Africa agent already American appeared Archives arrested Association Atlantic became become Bloemfontein brothel Buenos Aires burglary Cape Town Chapter charge City close Colony Court crime criminal detectives early East End European evidence example File followed force friends gave German hand History immigrant interest Jack Jacobs Jewish Jews Johannesburg Joseph Silver Kielce knew known late later letter linked living London Lower March months Morality moved murders never noted once organised perhaps pimps police Polish political prison prostitutes psychopaths reason Records remained reported Russian sentenced sexual Side Sing slave Society South South African Statement Street taken told took trade turn underworld United weeks West Whitechapel Windhoek women York York City young