{"product_id":"yakuza-a-400-year-history-of-the-japanese-underworld","title":"YAKUZA: A 400-Year History of the Japanese Underworld","description":"\u003cp\u003eJapan’s gangster groups, known collectively as the yakuza, are among the oldest underworld societies in the world. With military-style organization and a code of absolute obedience, they have run Japan’s black markets for centuries. They have remained strikingly conspicuous in Japanese society, and as a cultural force beyond Japan, with movies and video games celebrating their exploits globally. However, yakuza is still a word that cannot be uttered easily in polite conversation in Japan.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis is a mob story like no other. The yakuza’s main business activities – control of gambling games, protection rackets, and the sex trade – are typical of other mafia groups, but their culture and mythology are distinctively Japanese, and their history is inseparable from the social transformations of Japan over the centuries.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn this gripping popular history, Andrew Rankin tells the full story of the yakuza for the first time, from their emergence out of seventeenth-century samurai gang culture to the present day. He draws on material from rare, banned volumes concealed from authorities in private mobster libraries; historical Japanese-language source material hitherto unavailable in English; and extensive interviews with old gangsters.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFeaturing a lively cast of extortionists, smugglers, hit men and corporate crime lords, Yakuza is a fascinating tour of Japan’s sprawling mob syndicates and the traditions with which they are so deeply intertwined. This will be the definitive work on the subject for years to come.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ELLIOTT AND THOMPSON","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46038214705343,"sku":"9781783967629","price":41.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/1689\/8751\/files\/457846-a128a159dab38fb9cb7911569957b4080a415fa239a1b703f01402b119f7fda5.jpg?v=1787035674","url":"https:\/\/popweasel.co.nz\/products\/yakuza-a-400-year-history-of-the-japanese-underworld","provider":"Pop Weasel","version":"1.0","type":"link"}