The final part illuminates the internationalization of Japanese organized crime syndicates.

occupation authorities and economic-bubble-related activity. Together, Parts II and III constitute the definitive description of yakuza highlights include the role of U.S. Part III is an account of 'modern' yakuza. Part II discusses the 'Kodama years' in which yakuza came to power under Kodama Yoshio-godfather, kingmaker, millionaire, imperial adviser, author, and spy. Part I discusses early yakuza history and origins. 2 That piece is fun reading as an accompanying piece, but it is now nearly a quarter-century old and nowhere near as complete. The only other single work of the same scope is David Stark's 1981 Michigan anthropology dissertation, based on his year in the field. I begin with unbridled praise: Yakuza is well written, fascinating, has more relevant information in one place than any other source, and when Kaplan and Dubro modestly call it 'a standard reference,' I am tempted to replace the 'a' with a 'the.' For anyone working around the various fields that organized crime touches, it's required reading, and virtually an automatic footnote.

I tell the story not only to satisfy readers' more salacious appetites, but also because it serves as a nice crutch to contextualize the book. I changed the text to 'journalistic,' and I think Kaplan and I patched things up (he generously refrains from characterizing my work as boring, at least). He was right, of course I had exaggerated the description in a misguided effort to protect myself by ensuring that readers knew that I had not relied on investigative reporting as scholarly canon. This characterization did not please Kaplan, and he emailed me with a response that went something like: 'what if I described your work as being the dull, boring, overly theoretical work of a couple of ivory-tower law professors?'

It seems that in a footnote in which we cited the first edition of Yakuza, I (and it was me I cannot blame my coauthor) described the book as 'somewhat sensationalistic.' Oops. News & World Report reporter David Kaplan (whom I've never met) for comments. In 1999, Curtis Milhaupt and I had just completed a draft of one of our own studies of Japanese organized crime, 1 and I sent it to one of Yakuza's authors, U.S. I'll spend most of this review supporting, contextualizing, and qualifying that view, but before I get there, allow me to give you some gossipy subtext. Yakuza: Japan's Criminal Underworld is the industry standard, the most complete work on Japanese organized crime in any language, and required for your bookshelf.

David kaplan yakuza