The Mafia has maintained an enduring hold on the American cultural imagination--even as it continues to wrongly color our real-life perception of Italian Americans. Journalist and cultural critic De Stefano takes a look at the origins and prevalence of the Mafia mythos in America. Beginning with a consideration of Italian emigration in the early twentieth century and the fear and prejudice--among both Americans and Italians--that informed our earliest...

"New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano attempts to balance family with a life of crime." --

Miami Beach, 1959. Ike rings in the New Year at his Miramar Playa Hotel. The Kennedys, the mob and the CIA all hold court here. But everything comes at a price. To finance his dream, Ike sold his soul to mob boss Ben 'The Butcher' Diamond. Everyone thinks he's an honorable man, but he can't break his pact with the devil. His life is a facade. Nothing at the Miramar Playa is what it seems. As Ike's world threatens to implode, he fights for his family,...

It's tough times in Jersery for Tony Soprano. The sluggish economy hasn't been good for the family business. His wife Carmela is angling for more financial security. Some longtime lieutenants aren't happy with Tony's recent decisions. A rival boss wants a bigger piece of the suburban pie. A Soprano is actually heading to trial for the first time in decades. At least one child seems to have lost interest in higher education. And the ducks aren't coming...

Tony Soprano is your average, middle-aged businessman. Tony's got a dutiful wife, a not-so-dutiful daughter, a son named Anthony Jr. a mother he's trying to coax into a retirement home, a hot-headed uncle, a not-too-secret mistress and a shrink to tell all his secrets, except the one she already knows: Tony's a mob boss.

In the final nine episodes of the series, Tony continues to muse about his second chance at life while facing a myriad of immediate, stress-inducing crises at home, at work and from the law. Carmela, AJ and Meadow each make choices that promise to change the face of the Sopranos' domestic life. Meanwhile, at work, Tony comes to doubt the allegiances of many of those closest to him. No one - not Paulie, Bobby Bacala, Silvio or ever Christopher - is...

The Untouchables chronicles the campaign of Eliot Ness (Robert Stack), the young U.S. Prohibition Bureau agent determined to smash the beer and booze empire of Al Capone in 1920s Chicago.

The Untouchables chronicles the campaign of Eliot Ness (Robert Stack), the young U.S. Prohibition Bureau agent determined to smash the beer and booze empire of Al Capone in Chicago from 1929-1933.