Andrew Wender Cohen, professor and director of graduate studies in the History Department, has written Gangster of New York: A Violent Life in Nineteenth Century America (Cambridge University Press, 2026).

Cohen’s third book traces the extraordinary life of Louis Bieral, a 19th-century gangster, politician, sportsman and Civil War hero whose turbulent journey illuminates the violence woven into the fabric of American life. Kidnapped from his birthplace in revolutionary South America, Bieral went on to fight Sumatran pirates with the U.S. Navy, pan for California gold and rise as a crime boss who raced horses, boxed champions and ran brothels. As a Union officer, he earned fame on the battlefield before becoming a Gilded Age bodyguard for political heavyweights including Boss Tweed, William Seward and Jim Fisk—and eventually a suspect in Fisk’s murder.

Cohen studies the history of crime and criminal law in the United States. He is also the author of Contraband: Smuggling and the Birth of the American Century (W.W. Norton, 2015) and The Racketeer’s Progress: Chicago and the Struggle for the Modern American Economy, 1900–1940 (Cambridge University Press, 2004). 

From the publisher:

This is the story of Louis Bieral, a 19th-century gangster, politician, sportsman and Civil War hero. Kidnapped from his birthplace in revolutionary South America, he doused fires in Jacksonian New York, battled Sumatran pirates with the U.S. Navy and panned for California gold. As a crime boss, he raced horses, boxed champions and ran brothels. Yet Bieral’s adventurous life was also steeped in the brutality of his time. He befriended rowdies like “Butcher” Bill Poole, returned fugitives like Anthony Burns to slavery and assaulted abolitionists such as Richard Henry Dana. As a Union officer, Bieral won fame in battle. He was a Gilded Age bodyguard for “Boss” Tweed, William Seward and Jim Fisk, becoming a suspect in that tycoon’s murder. From the docks of Valparaíso to the dining room of Delmonico’s to the cells of Auburn Prison, Bieral’s remarkable journey illustrates the violence that bound 19th-century America together.