Tom La Vecchia interviews John Dickie who is a Top Mafia Expert and Best Selling Author. They discuss the landscape of Italian organized crime in Italy and abroad. He states his research interests as "Representations of the Italian South, Italian nationalism and national identities, cultural history of liberal Italy, cultural and critical theory, organized crime, Italian food." In 2005 President of the Italian Republic awarded him the Commendatore dell'Ordine della Stella della Solidarietà Italiana (Commander of the Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity), an Italian knighthood. Dickie is the author of various books: Darkest Italy.

The Nation and Stereotypes of the Mezzogiorno, 1860-1900 (New York, 1999), Cosa Nostra: A History Of The Sicilian Mafia (2004) A "fine achievement" according to Professor Jane Schneider, in European History Quarterly (2008) Delizia! The Epic History of Italians and their Food (2007) Una catastrofe patriottica. 1908: il terremoto di Messina (A Patriotic Catastrophe. 1908: The Earthquake of Messina, Rome, 2008) Blood Brotherhoods: the Rise of the Italian Mafias (2011) Mafia Republic: Italy's Criminal Curse. Cosa Nostra, 'Ndrangheta and Camorra from 1946 to the Present (2014) In 2020 he published The Craft – How the Freemasons Made the Modern World.

Learn more about John here: https://johndickie.net/