The Mafia's shadow men

In their quest to assemble fragments of the past into a coherent explanation for why things happened as they did, historians tend to take one of two paths. Some stick to the deeds of kings, presidents and famous military commanders, agreeing with Thomas Carlyle that "the history of the world is but the biography of great men." Others contend that the engines of history are really to be found in the anonymous multitudes, whose collective needs and capabilities determine the overarching economic, technological and social realities that shape the world and its future. And then there is a third notion, usually discredited but always seductive, that history is the product of a different breed of great men: the kind who plot their schemes in dark shadows and keep their identities secret. Such a man was Sidney Korshak.