Dear Readers,
As you know, I’m on vacation. But I set a couple of posts to go live while I’m gone, and we’re very lucky to have one of them written by Benjamin T. Smith.
You may already know Ben’s work even if you aren’t a historian. His recent book, The Dope: The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade, has been a smash hit, and deservedly so. If you’re looking for one book to give you an historical overview of the whole of the twentieth and twenty-first century Mexican drug trade, this is it. It’s a great read and I highly recommend it.
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Ben has been a force in the field for two decades, publishing prolifically on Mexican political history in numerous books and articles. He’s also just a lovely guy with a taste for late nights and crap beer.
Today he’s got some great stuff for us on a decidedly depressing topic—extrajudicial murder in Mexico. Way back when I was in graduate school, I did some work for Kate Doyle at the National Security Archive on Mexico’s “Dirty War
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