Description
Temporarily out of stock
Title: Dope, The: The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade
Author: SMITH BENJAMIN T
Format: PAPERBACK
Publication date: 01/06/2021
Imprint: EBURY PRESS
Price: $35.00
Publishing status: Active
Discover the secret history behind the headlines. The Mexican drug wars have inspired
countless articles, TV shows and movies. From Breaking Bad to Sicario, El Chapo’s
escapes to Trump’s tirades, this is a story we think we know. But there’s a hidden history to
the biggest story of the twenty-first century. The Dope exposes how an illicit industry that
started with farmers, families and healers came to be dominated by cartels, kingpins and
corruption. Benjamin T Smith traces an unforgettable cast of characters from the early
twentieth century to the modern day, whose actions came to influence Mexico as we now
know it. There’s Enrique Fernández, the borderlands trafficker who became Mexico’s first
major narco and one of the first victims of the war on drugs; Eduardo ‘Lalo’ Fernández,
Mexico’s most prominent heroin chemist and first major cocaine importer; Leopoldo Salazar
Viniegra, the brilliant doctor and Marxist who tried (and failed) to decriminalize Mexico’s
drugs; and Harry Anslinger, the head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics whose
sensationalist strategies paved the way for U.S. interference and the extraordinary levels of
violence in Mexico today. The Dope is the epic saga of how violence and corruption came
to plague modern Mexico, and the first book to make sense of the political and economic
big picture of the Mexican drug wars.
ISBN: 9781529105681
Pages: 448