I’ll admit it. I am one of those people who thought the yakuza are just the Japanese mafia. As with many things, I was wrong again. Luckily, I had Andrew Rankin and his excellent Yakuza to set me straight.
Rankin goes back 400 years to find the roots of what would become the yakuza. The utterly fascinating aspect is how intertwined the yakuza was with both the public and the government. Often, they would act as an arm of the government and take on such jobs as firefighting and protection of far flung-villages. Inevitably, a crackdown would occur or turf wars would explode.
Rankin presents a highly complex and long history perfectly. He introduces a time period and then peppers the narrative with specific stories of yakuza and their rises or falls from grace. The book feels so tightly planned and executed that it feels less like history and more like a crime drama. It isn’t often that you pick up a book and get exactly what you want. Luckily, this is one of those books.
(This book was provided as a review copy by Basic Books.)
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