The mafia was born on the ruins of the feudal system, but its boom only happened with the development of democracy and capitalism. It soon took root in Naples, Sicily and Calabria and owes its prosperity to the criminal pacts it made with part of the political and social elite. ***** The book reconstructs the political history of mafias and their expansion on the European continent. The author maps their cradle and finds the first actors of the story: corrupt nobles, unscrupulous prominent people, wealthy landowners, hitmen... He uncovers the invisible ties of these "criminal sects" to the nascent democracy and follows their conquest of America. ***** With the Cold War, the speculator mutation of mafia networks appears and the author unravels the methods of their parasitism on the liberal economy. We are in a time of booming drug trade, the creation of tax havens, the compromise of the Vatican bank and real estate scandals, where mafia bosses join hands with politicians, industrialists and financiers. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, new opaque groups are growing in Europe, using this "model" to conquer more territories... ***** About the author: ***** French historian Jacques de Saint Victor (1963) works at the Sorbonne University Paris Nord, focuses on the political and legal history of France and Italy. He devoted three books to the topic of Italian mafias, and in addition publishes mainly on the ideological context of the French Revolution. His book Invisible Power received the prize for best essay from the French Academy and was also published in Italian. In addition to professional works, Saint Victor is also the author of a travel essay about the ancient Roman Via Appia and a novel about Madame du Barry, which has already been published in a Czech translation.