On this episode of Our American Stories Al Capone became the most famous gangster in America but Laurence Bergreen argues that his rise would have been almost unimaginable without Prohibition Born to an Italian immigrant family in Brooklyn Capone found his opportunity in the vast underground economy created when the government outlawed alcohol eventually rising to the top of Chicago's criminal world while cultivating the public image of a businessman and local benefactor Bergreen author of Capone The Man and the Era separates the man from the legend tracing Capone's rise his conviction for tax evasion his imprisonment at Alcatraz
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