How lemons made the mafia

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  • Опубликовано: 19 июн 2024
  • Go to sponsr.is/cs_presentpast and use code PRESENTPAST to save 25% off today. Thanks to Curiosity Stream for sponsoring today’s video.
    The Sicilian mafia has become the template for organised crime. But where did they come from?
    00:00 - 00:55 - Intro
    00:55 - 02:55 - some mafia background
    02:56 - 04:52 - will I be able to enter Italy ever again
    04:52 - 05:57 - the market for lemons
    05:57 - 07:51 - lemon production and politics
    07:51 - 10:08 - eat your fruits
    10:08 - 12:30 - maths
    Many thanks to David Angel!
    Sources:
    Go check out the main source for this video. It is really interesting.
    Arcangelo Dimico, Alessia Isopi, and Ola Olsson, “Origins of the Sicilian Mafia: The Market for Lemons,” The Journal of Economic History 77, no. 4 (2017): 1083-1115, www.jstor.org/stable/26787062
    John Dickie, Cosa Nostra : A History of the Sicilian Mafia (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
    Salvatore Lupo, History of the Mafia (Columbia University Press, 2009)
    Paolo Buonanno et al., “Poor Institutions, Rich Mines: Resource Curse in the Origins of the Sicilian Mafia,” The Economic Journal 125, no. 586 (August 1, 2015): F175-202, doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12236.
    Catherine Price, “The Age of Scurvy,” Science History Institute, August 14, 2017, sciencehistory.org/stories/ma...
    Stephen Bown, Scurvy: How a Surgeon, a Mariner, and a Gentleman Solved the Greatest Medical Mystery of the Age of Sail (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2005)
    www.adn.com/alaska-life/2022/...
    Elenora C Gordon, “Scurvy and Anson’s Voyage Round the World: 1740-1744 an Analysis of the Royal Navy’s Worst Outbreak,” American Neptune 44, no. 3 (1984): 155-6
    Hi there, my name is Jochem Boodt. I make the show The Present Past, where I show how the present has been influenced by the past. History, but connected to the present and fun!
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Комментарии • 95

  • @ThePresentPast_
    @ThePresentPast_  6 месяцев назад +5

    Go to sponsr.is/cs_presentpast and use code PRESENTPAST to save 25% off today. Thanks to Curiosity Stream for sponsoring today’s video

  • @carn109
    @carn109 6 месяцев назад +97

    When Life gives you lemons, start a mafia.

    • @COUPLE2COUPLES
      @COUPLE2COUPLES 6 месяцев назад

      🤣🤣🤣

    • @vangraff3478
      @vangraff3478 5 месяцев назад

      When life gives you lemons, be a bregand

  • @Butter_Warrior99
    @Butter_Warrior99 6 месяцев назад +36

    And I thought J. Jonah Jameson was crazy for wanting to turn lemons into grenades. In all seriousness, at first you had my curiosity, now you have my attention.

    • @rherydrevins
      @rherydrevins 6 месяцев назад

      *Cave Johnson. J. Jonah Jameson was only interested in getting pictures of that goddamned Spider-Man.

  • @widmawod
    @widmawod 6 месяцев назад +33

    As a Sicilian, I really appreciate this video. There is this kind of inertia in telling the story of how the mafia came about in Sicilian schools, mainly talking about the failures of unifying Italy, 19th-century banditry, and western powers reinforcing mafia dynamics during, for example, the World Wars. Hearing about the economic aspect of this, and about newer studies on this story, is really refreshing.
    Judging from other videos you made in the past, and of course your background as a historian, you are aware of the geographical power imbalances between Italy's South and the North. This has led to both systemic and non-systemic discrimination practices that now we know as 'antimeridionalismo' (anti-Southernism). The fight against anti-Southernism is also tied to the struggle against the mafia, and against the imagery and stereotypes that were brought about not only by Sicily's ties to the mafia, but also by the North of Italy and foreign countries taking economic advantage of the mafia symbol and making it glamourous. So, I really appreciate how you made sure at the beginning to make clear that the mafia is not what we see in movies, and that Sicily is not 'Mafialand' and is completely safe.

    • @ThePresentPast_
      @ThePresentPast_  6 месяцев назад +12

      How Italy is divided is definitely on the list for next year!

    • @widmawod
      @widmawod 6 месяцев назад +2

      @@ThePresentPast_ excitedd!!

    • @DonHrvato
      @DonHrvato 6 месяцев назад +1

      ​@@ThePresentPast_ooh yeah great topic, cant wait

    • @Matts_Ancient_Coins
      @Matts_Ancient_Coins 6 месяцев назад +4

      My wife is from northern Italy and you can definitely see the major differences between the north and the south. The people I am around don’t speak negatively about the south, although I know it is a common stereotype to think so.

  • @Carnivorousplantyum
    @Carnivorousplantyum 6 месяцев назад +12

    When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.
    When life hands you melons, you may be dyslexic.

  • @herzogsbuick
    @herzogsbuick 6 месяцев назад +5

    i'm considering the possibility that the source of that 1.6 million gallons of lemon juice figure is an old British source. which means they're imperial gallons, not the smaller US gallon. which means it would by 7,273,000 liters. furthermore, it seemed like you where trying to use the volume of a single smaller lemon. but not all of the lemon is juice. the internet says about 2 tablespoons from a smaller lemon, so i rounded up to 30mL and got 242,433,300 lemons

  • @Zestieee
    @Zestieee 6 месяцев назад +4

    My best friend is from Sicily and back in high school days he had acquaintances who would unashamedly say that they went out stealing lemons. One of them, I was told, was shot (but missed) by someone who caught him in the act.

  • @Matts_Ancient_Coins
    @Matts_Ancient_Coins 6 месяцев назад +3

    I’ve binged all of your videos. Very well researched and interesting.

  • @SuperPsychoSheep
    @SuperPsychoSheep 6 месяцев назад +4

    When life gives you lemons, make the mafia.

  • @zalareberc7858
    @zalareberc7858 6 месяцев назад +4

    You are simply the zest

  • @2failepic
    @2failepic 6 месяцев назад +2

    Am I the only one who thinks that the green jacket makes him look like a supermarket employee?😅

  • @stijnnijssen2974
    @stijnnijssen2974 6 месяцев назад +1

    enjoyed this one!

  • @SisterSunny
    @SisterSunny 6 месяцев назад +2

    an absolutely amazingly produced video on a fascinating subject-I genuinely had no idea about most of the concepts explored in this video!

  • @spaguettoltd.7933
    @spaguettoltd.7933 6 месяцев назад

    Great video!

  • @MrBetaJacques
    @MrBetaJacques 6 месяцев назад +1

    Im so in love with this channel ^^

  • @Homer-OJ-Simpson
    @Homer-OJ-Simpson 6 месяцев назад +3

    There's also a great story in how that mafia would be exported to the US (NYC) in the late 1800's if IIRC.

  • @KPC-123
    @KPC-123 6 месяцев назад

    Keep it up ..... Your gettin better :)

  • @_qb_
    @_qb_ 5 месяцев назад

    Amazing video worth millions of views. Keep up the great work, it will pay off!

  • @pqrstsma2011
    @pqrstsma2011 6 месяцев назад +1

    7:08 reminds me of something similar i read maybe a year ago, about avocados in Michoacan (Mexico).... fruits on trees, high value, high demand, armed militia for protection, etc

    • @screwyourhandle
      @screwyourhandle 5 месяцев назад +1

      I didn't even think of that while watching this video, but yeah, that's correct. It's often been referred to as the "avocado mafia"

  • @PhilEdwardsInc
    @PhilEdwardsInc 6 месяцев назад

    what a crazy story! and good calculations...

  • @Matts_Ancient_Coins
    @Matts_Ancient_Coins 6 месяцев назад +1

    I’m surprised it’s not the lemons from Naples. They are huge and amazing.

  • @Faustobellissimo
    @Faustobellissimo 6 месяцев назад +2

    Anyway, this lemon story is just one of many hypotheses that have been made by academic scholars of the mafia phenomenon.

  • @BlueBaron3339
    @BlueBaron3339 6 месяцев назад

    Interesting! And you're right - the word, mafia, now applies to any complex criminal organization regardless of location in the world. And your approach is wonderfully reminiscent of James Burke's old documentary series, Connections 😀

  • @ursulamateo1826
    @ursulamateo1826 3 месяца назад

    what an interesting video… and even more interesting the way you calculated the lemons amount using also a minesweeper 😅 the things we learn everyday!

  • @Drunkbobnopantss
    @Drunkbobnopantss 5 месяцев назад

    in highschool history was boring
    lately i realiZed its fascinating, every item you pick up in your home has hundreds to thousands of years of drama, betrayal, politics that could be made into a movie
    subbed

  • @peabody1976
    @peabody1976 5 месяцев назад

    Oh... your ad read starts with "I just got a beamer", and my American ears wondered where your BMW automobile was. 😕
    And lemons are one of my favourite flavours (yes, Commonwealth spelling), so this was a very intriguing topic. Thank you!

  • @maxheadrom3088
    @maxheadrom3088 6 месяцев назад +1

    The judge whose car was blown up in the 1980s was called Giovanni Falcone. Later, the methods he used to prosecute the Sicilian mafia was used by prosecutors in Rome in the "Clean Hands" operation. In Brazil, the then federal judge Sérgio Moro applied his methods in the Car Wash anti-corruption operation.

  • @TheLuckyluc555
    @TheLuckyluc555 6 месяцев назад

    Banger

  • @Kamome163
    @Kamome163 6 месяцев назад

    Great documentary. That Sicily map🤌😍

  • @LNTutorialsNL
    @LNTutorialsNL 5 месяцев назад

    This is great! Such a shame the video has this little views...

  • @sameersadh6717
    @sameersadh6717 5 месяцев назад +1

    The video is really well made , you should change the thumbnail and i am sure the video will gain more views.

  • @moonflower1759
    @moonflower1759 4 месяца назад

    Underrated video, algorithm do your thing 😡

  • @evelynstarshine8561
    @evelynstarshine8561 6 месяцев назад

    Quite different from the version of history where they developed out of the romanticised neopolitian bandits and highwaymen of the 1700-1800s, very interesting video.

  • @winterburden
    @winterburden 6 месяцев назад +1

    When life gives me lemons I make beef stew.

  • @colonelweird
    @colonelweird 6 месяцев назад +2

    Did I miss the part where he talked about the Cosa Nostra controlling Sicilian lemons?

  • @giacomolocati8452
    @giacomolocati8452 6 месяцев назад

    Nice "Horse racing tracks of Milan" merch...?

  • @Should_I_Buy
    @Should_I_Buy 3 месяца назад

    Interesting he calls a projector a Beamer. Never heard it called that

  • @felineboy1586
    @felineboy1586 6 месяцев назад

    Bro looks so funny every time he says word mafia 😂😂😂

  • @xcjsmith5310
    @xcjsmith5310 Месяц назад

    I knew SpongeBob was right!!! E V I L = Every Villain is Lemon!! Preach it !!

  • @jasxx1108
    @jasxx1108 13 дней назад

    Good 👍 channel

  • @alexomar9168
    @alexomar9168 6 месяцев назад

    Hey in California (maybe elsewhere) a "beamer" is a BMW 😄 we can that device a projector.

    • @noneofmynameswork1
      @noneofmynameswork1 6 месяцев назад +1

      After some quick googling, beamer as BMW seems to be a British/American thing, while beamer as projector is a German/Dutch thing

  • @pyeitme508
    @pyeitme508 6 месяцев назад +2

    Wow 👀

  • @TheOnlyDamien
    @TheOnlyDamien 6 месяцев назад +1

    Not that it matters but I can't get over how attractive you are, anyways I love your videos and I hope you keep making them for a long time the amount of research but also visuals that go into them are seriously impressive for how small of an operation it seems thanks for bringing cool topics to us! Your east/western Germany video brought about some really cool discussion with some German friends and their parents which is awesome. You definitely deserve the explosion of success that your channel will inevitably see!

  • @alexbhr6661
    @alexbhr6661 6 месяцев назад

    Hello this reminds of the avocado situation in Mexico. Where villages have to protect themselves angainst the cartel .

  • @Diskhate
    @Diskhate 6 месяцев назад

    Started this video hoping that someone foreign would, finally, pronounced " 'ndrangheta " correctly...you failed me.
    Jokes aside: this is probably one of the best videos i've ever seen trying to tackle this topic.
    Cheers from Italy

  • @tanithrosenbaum
    @tanithrosenbaum 6 месяцев назад +7

    3:16 Since I've made that mistake in the past too: A Be{a/e}mer is a BMW vehicle. What you got there is a video projector :) Otherwise, great video. Thank you!

    • @wolf-fx8sc
      @wolf-fx8sc 6 месяцев назад +4

      While yes a beamer may refer to a BMW, in the Netherlands we refer to a video projector as a beamer. So what he's saying is correct.

    • @johanlugthart7782
      @johanlugthart7782 6 месяцев назад +1

      I am afraid it’s not correct if you talk English instead of Dutch. Making this mistake myself as well…
      Beamer was a brand of projectors, and the Dutch started to use the brand name for the all the projectors.

  • @dundee2858
    @dundee2858 4 месяца назад

    My guy how the hell did you get 173 million lemons, two google search’s and one calculation and you get 55 million (using small lemons), plus thats over 20 years so in reality that’s a pretty tiny number

  • @apontel
    @apontel 16 дней назад

    In essence, olympic swimming pools are big.

  • @rasmusn.e.m1064
    @rasmusn.e.m1064 6 месяцев назад

    If only lemons were spiky I might never gave had to fall asleep to The Godfather again ;)

  • @marym7104
    @marym7104 5 месяцев назад

    Within 4 weeks!

  • @joaovitormatos8147
    @joaovitormatos8147 6 месяцев назад

    Since I've added this to my "Watch Later" Playlist, this changed thumbnails 3 times. Is everything OK?

  • @skybluskyblueify
    @skybluskyblueify 6 месяцев назад

    Isn't it true that many other plants have vit C? Were lemons the most long-lasting plant resource that they could bring on long voyages? Supposedly some conifer parts have enough vit C, yucky, but a resource nonetheless.

    • @ThePresentPast_
      @ThePresentPast_  6 месяцев назад +2

      yes (like sauerkraut) but lemons are easy to transport and have very high amounts of vit c. The British also started to import limes, but they have less vitamin c and they also cooked the juice, which basically killed all the vitamin c in it.

  • @leehaseley2164
    @leehaseley2164 6 месяцев назад

    The "i" in "brigand" is pronounced as in the word "big".

  • @OmegaRainbow
    @OmegaRainbow 5 месяцев назад

  • @smaza2
    @smaza2 6 месяцев назад +1

    w-wait so the threat of lemon stealing wh*res is historically accurate?

    • @ThePresentPast_
      @ThePresentPast_  6 месяцев назад

      I am not aware of the thieves being sex workers

    • @andersenpeters
      @andersenpeters 6 месяцев назад

      My wife and I were debating if he would know about that meme or not given the age of it.

  • @azzureone78
    @azzureone78 6 месяцев назад

    Great video but I kept wanting to brush that strand of your hair out of the way 😅

  • @pastamug1960
    @pastamug1960 6 месяцев назад

    Your hair looks nice today

  • @lukasclark884
    @lukasclark884 6 месяцев назад

    I think the Phoenicians and the Greeks were in Sicily before the Romans.

  • @vangraff3478
    @vangraff3478 5 месяцев назад

    5:46 Citizens *from the maduro dictatorship.

  • @abogoni
    @abogoni 4 месяца назад

    Bloody Mafia!

  • @LeoISobjecting
    @LeoISobjecting 6 месяцев назад

    Comment for the algorithm

  • @marym7104
    @marym7104 5 месяцев назад

    15,195th viewer of this video!

  • @davesprivatelounge
    @davesprivatelounge 6 месяцев назад

    Lémon

  • @chrisgibson2328
    @chrisgibson2328 5 месяцев назад

    Olive oil ?

  • @user-or4hs7xq9u
    @user-or4hs7xq9u 6 месяцев назад +1

    🇮🇹 didn’t get better, Norway 🇳🇴 got worse.......

  • @mightymagnus
    @mightymagnus 5 месяцев назад +1

    There is another explanation I think you should know: You mentioned that Cosa Nostra are clans, and it is maybe a word people don't understand, because yes you are family, but how come you are so large family and united together?
    This is were cousin marriage comes in hand, and a specific one: the daughters marry the uncles sons. By doing this the wealth stays within the family, within the clan. You also increase the genetic similarity, marry cousins in multiple generations make you genetically similar like siblings. This means you also stick together more, people tend to take more care for a sibling than a cousin. But, the inbreeding also increase, it is easy to joke about the deformed Habsburgs, but the sickness happens to anyone. Also, the level of violence goes up, maybe to protect the clan, but also shows an heavy increase of ADHD in modern studdies. This inbreeding, with all its sicknesses, was seen so bad that the Catholic church put a lot of effort to forbid it, and did so across Europe.
    But Sicily sure must be Catholic? Yes, now they are, but their history is different, 827-1091 it was the Emirate of Sicily, and Christians was under the Orthodox church (banned first 1585), which did not enforce strict regulations against cousin marriages, so the practices remain in the island. This is not too uncommon in places with weak government, then the clan provides the protection that the state would otherwise do. And 1814-1861 was just that for Sicily.
    From wikipedia. "In Southern Italy, cousin marriage was a usual tradition in regions such as Calabria and Sicily, where first-cousin marriage in the 1900s was near to 50 percent of all marriages." (Note that Calabria also have large mafia: 'Ndrangheta)
    "The greater the rate of cousin marriage in a province, the higher the rates of corruption and Mafia activity.”

  • @sotirismitzolis5171
    @sotirismitzolis5171 6 месяцев назад

    Soooooo...how did lemons make the mafia?

    • @matthewbrotman2907
      @matthewbrotman2907 6 месяцев назад

      The mafia started as security forces for lemon groves.

  • @Faustobellissimo
    @Faustobellissimo 6 месяцев назад

    If you're trying to learn Italian, you should work more on word stress.
    For example, your pronunciation of omertà and ndrangheta...

  • @afn42
    @afn42 6 месяцев назад