A Narco History

How the United States and Mexico Jointly Created the “Mexican Drug War”

By: Carmen Boullosa, Mike Wallace

Narrated by: James Conlan

Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

The term Mexican Drug War misleads. It implies that the ongoing bloodbath, which has now killed well over 100,000 people, is an internal Mexican affair. But this diverts attention from the US role in creating and sustaining the carnage. It's not just that Americans buy drugs from and sell weapons to Mexico's murderous cartels. It's that ever since the US prohibited the use and sale of drugs in the early 1900s, it has pressured Mexico into acting as its border enforcer - with increasingly deadly consequences. Mexico was not a helpless victim. Powerful forces within the country profited hugely from supplying Americans with what their government forbade them. But the policies that spawned the drug war have proved disastrous for both countries. Written by two award-winning authors, one American and the other Mexican, A Narco History reviews the interlocking 20th-century histories that produced this 21st-century calamity and proposes how to end it.

©2015 Carmen Boullosa and Mike Wallace (P)2015 Audible, Inc.

Interesting book, tricky pronunciation

The book makes reference to a lot of names of people, places, institutions, and events in Spanish with terrible pronunciation by the narrator which makes it unnecessarily confusing to the listener. Either the narrator needs better coaching or new narrators who are bilingual need to step forward.

Brilliant History

This should be standard reading for anyone who is interested in the history of the Mexican drug problem. They often quote from Ioan Grillo's El Narco - also obligatory reading if this is your interest. My only criticism is that the narrator clearly cannot pronounce the Mexican Spanish words properly and sounds more like a CNN transatlantic announcer.

Lost me half way

Started off well with history and background. Turned into political piece twisting and using storyline to pushing liberal ideal domestically. Disappointed ..

anti gun enough to ignore its value

the author loses credibility when he is so left leaning he never mentions "fast and furious" even though he mentions the murder of the boarder patrol agent. he also touches on armed civilians doing more to stop corrupt government and cartels. then continues to blame American laws that provide this protection as an evil.

Learned A Lot!

The historical view point taken by the author was interesting and lined up the facts in another book I read about the history of the war on drugs. the main characters of in this book lined up with the characters in the other book. the underlining theme of both books support the fact that the war on drugs was created by the same country aiming to stop it. Good listen, will get the hard copy for future research.

Blame America

There is a lot of interesting, factual information in this book. There is also a whole lot of opinion scattered heavily throughout. Somehow, Americans' freedom to own AR15's puts RPG's (rocket propelled grenades) on the streets of Mexico?

Carmen Boullosa should have listened

Otherwise excellent book

Carmen Boullosa should have listened before this audiobook was launched. She would have let the reader know of several mistakes in the pronunciation. Help this man to say "sexenio" properly, since it is a much used word in the text. It is pronounced Sex-EN-io, not Sej-EN-io.

Marxist take on the drug wars

Thorough, but told from a far far left wing perspective. After a while the authors’ socialist political lecturing becomes annoying, tiresome and detracts from the book.

Great History

I love how the author maintained a non-bias factual sheet. Well knowledgeable, and great details on the series of events on the Cartel Drugs War.
This book should be listened by Americans and also Mexicans seeking a wider understanding and background of Politics, Corruption, US drug involvement and the origin of Cartels.

Spoiler Alert

2021 Record Mexican Homicide rate and no one gives a hot.
This is such a sad story. I hope Americans will ne moved to question the neo liberalism that runs America, it is dismantling Mexico.

Really interesting

Really interesting but it lost it a bit with to many stats. The end was very honest and worrying for all of us .

Probably too much stats and figures

Liked it.. Maybe too much facts and figures..if you like that sort of thing it's 5 stars

Great book

Very informative and unbiased look at the world of narcotics traffickers.
Well worth a listen.

Conversation on The War On Drugs

A pointed survey of the War On Drugs from Harry Schlessinger through the 2nd decade of the 21 C from the perspective of Mexico.

I think it's fairly safe to say that along with the wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan & Iraq America has not won this war, despite the Trillions that have been spent, untold suffering, hardship & death it has caused.

Most interesting to me was the Autodefensia movement in Mexico and how very understandable this type of reaction is from the perspective of a population that has been betrayed, more or less, by the policies in the USA as well as by the incompetence, corruption and wrongheadedness of its own.

Worth a read by anyone interested in the subject.

Bleak but fascinating documentary

This audiobook is a bit 'academic paper' in tone sometimes and the narrator isn't amazing, but it's fascinating and well researched, if very bleak. The total failure of the 'war on drugs' and it's dire consequences laid bare.