Bugsy Siegel The Dark Side of the American Dream

Michael Shnayerson

eBook - 2021

The story of the notorious Jewish gangster who ascended from impoverished beginnings to the glittering Las Vegas strip"A highly readable, fast-moving contribution to the annals of 20th-century organized crime."—Kirkus Reviews In a brief life that led to a violent end, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel (1906–1947) rose from desperate poverty to ill-gotten riches, from an early-twentieth-century family of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants on the Lower East Side to a kingdom of his own making in Las Vegas. In this captivating portrait, author Michael Shnayerson sets out not to absolve Bugsy Siegel but rather to understand him in all his complexity.  Through the 1920s, 1930s, and most of the 1940s, Bugsy Siegel and his longti...me partner in crime Meyer Lansky engaged in innumerable acts of violence. As World War II came to an end, Siegel saw the potential for a huge, elegant casino resort in the sands of Las Vegas. Jewish gangsters built nearly all of the... more