Revenge When a tragic family accident reunites Shannon Gilbraith with Luca Salvatore, she isn’t prepared for the searing attraction that still flames between them. Luca is motivated by more than the custody of their orphaned baby niece when he proposes – he’s looking for revenge...

A most passionate revenge… Giancarlo Cardinale was determined to have his revenge. He thought Natalia Deyton had slept with his sister's husband. His passionate Sicilian nature demanded a vengeful seduction—and total surrender. But Giancarlo wasn't prepared for the innocence shining out of Natalia—or the sensual power of her stunning beauty. He knew he was falling in love for the first time—but family came first. He had no choice but to carry out his plan…

After Mario Puzo wrote his internationally acclaimed The Godfather, he has often been imitated but never equaled. Puzo's classic novel, The Sicilian, stands as a cornerstone of his work—a lushly romantic, unforgettable tale of bloodshed, justice, and treachery. . . . The year is 1950. Michael Corleone is nearing the end of his exile in Sicily. The Godfather has commanded Michael to bring a young Sicilian bandit named Salvatore Guiliano back with him to America. But Guiliano is a man entwined in a bloody web of violence and vendettas. In Sicily, Guiliano is a modern day Robin Hood who has defied corruption—and defied the Cosa Nostra. Now, in the land of mist-shrouded mountains and ancient ruins, Michael Corleone's fate is entwined with the dangerous legend of Salvatore Guiliano: warrior, lover, and the ultimate Siciliano. Praise for The Sicilian “Puzo is a master storyteller.”—USA Today “The Balzac of the mafia.”—Time “An accomplished and imaginative writer.”—Los Angeles Times

The dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, who ruled the Dominican Republic from 1930 until his assassination in 1961, was one of the longest and bloodiest in Latin American history. The Dictator’s Seduction is a cultural history of the Trujillo regime as it was experienced in the capital city of Santo Domingo. Focusing on everyday forms of state domination, Lauren Derby describes how the regime infiltrated civil society by fashioning a “vernacular politics” based on popular idioms of masculinity and fantasies of race and class mobility. Derby argues that the most pernicious aspect of the dictatorship was how it appropriated quotidian practices such as gossip and gift exchange, leaving almost no place for Dominicans to hide or resist. Drawing on previously untapped documents in the Trujillo National Archives and interviews with Dominicans who recall life under the dictator, Derby emphasizes the role that public ritual played in Trujillo’s exercise of power. His regime included the people in affairs of state on a massive scale as never before. Derby pays particular attention to how events and projects were received by the public as she analyzes parades and rallies, the rebuilding of Santo Domingo following a major hurricane, and the staging of a year-long celebration marking the twenty-fifth year of Trujillo’s regime. She looks at representations of Trujillo, exploring how claims that he embodied the popular barrio antihero the tíguere (tiger) stoked a fantasy of upward mobility and how a rumor that he had a personal guardian angel suggested he was uniquely protected from his enemies. The Dictator’s Seduction sheds new light on the cultural contrivances of autocratic power.

The Sicilian Mafia, or Cosa Nostra, is one of the most intriguing criminal phenomena in the world. It is an unparalleled organised criminal grouping that over almost two centuries has been able not only to successfully permeate licit and illicit economy, politics and civil society, but also to influence and exercise authoritative power over both the underworld and the upper-world. This criminal phenomenon has been a captivating conundrum for scholars of different disciplines who have tried to explain with various paradigms the reasons behind the emergence and consolidation of the mafia. Challenging the Mafia Mystique provides an analysis of the changes the Sicilian mafia has undergone, from legitimisation to denunciation. Rino Coluccello highlights how, from the very emergence of the organised criminal groups in Sicily, a culture existed that was protective and tolerant of the mafia. He argues that the various conceptualisations of the mafia that dominated the public and scientific debate in the nineteenth and more than half of the twentieth century created a mystique, which legitimised the mafia and contributed to their success. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students of organised crime, Italian politics and Italian literature.

The Culture of Love in China and Europe offers a cautiously comparative survey of the cults of love developed in the history of ideas and literary production in China and Europe between the 12th and early 19th century.

"A major, on-the-ground look at antiquities looting in Italy. More looting of ancient art takes place in Italy than in any other country. Ironically, Italy trades on the fact to demonstrate its cultural superiority over other countries. And, more than any other country, Italy takes pains to prevent looting by instituting laws, cultural policies, export taxes, and a famously effective art-crime squad that has been the inspiration of novels, movies, and tv shows. In fact, Italy is widely regarded as having invented the discipline of art policing. In 2006 the then-president of Italy declared his country to be "the world's greatest cultural power." Why do Italians believe this? Why is the patria, or "homeland," so frequently invoked in modern disputes about ancient art, particularly when it comes to matters of repatriation, export, and museum loans? Fiona Greenland's Ruling Culture addresses these questions by tracing the emergence of antiquities as a key source of power in Italy from 1815 to the present. Along the way, it investigates the activities and interactions of three main sets of actors: state officials (including Art Squad agents), archaeologists, and illicit excavators and collectors"--

The insightful essays in this book shine a new light on the roles of women within criminal networks, roles that in reality are often less traditional than researchers used to think. The book seeks to answer questions from a wide range of academic disciplines and traces the portrait of women tied to organized crime in Italy and around the world. The book offers up accounts of mafia women, and also tales of severe abuse and violence against women.

Modernist Idealism develops a framework for understanding modernist production as the artistic realization of philosophical concepts elaborated in German idealism.