Author | Ioan Grillo |
---|---|
Language | English Spanish |
Subject | Mexican drug war |
Genre | non-fiction |
Publisher | Bloomsbury Press |
Publication date | October 25, 2011 |
Pages | 336 |
ISBN | 1608192113 |
El Narco: Inside Mexico's Criminal Insurgency is a non-fiction book of the Mexican drug war written by Ioan Grillo.[1] In El Narco, Grillo takes a close look at the Mexican drug trade, starting with the term "El Narco", which has come to represent the vast, faceless criminal network of drug traffickers who cast a murderous shadow over Mexico.[2] The book covers the frontline of the Mexican drug war.[3] It seeks to trace the origins of the illegal drug trade in Mexico, the recent escalation of violence, the human cost of the drug trade and organized crime in the country.[4] The book takes a critical stance on the unsuccessful efforts made by the Mexican government and the United States to confront the violence and its causes.[4][5]
Grillo's book draws a portrait of the Mexican drug cartels and how they have radically transformed in the past couple of decades.[6] For the author, the criminal organizations in Mexico are not gangs; they are a "movement and an industry drawing in hundreds of thousands from bullet-ridden barrios to marijuana-growing mountains". The book explains how the cartels have created paramilitary death squads with tens of thousands of armed men from the country of Guatemala to the Texan border.[6] It contains testimonies from members inside of the cartels; and while El Narco shows that the "devastation" of the Mexican drug war may be south of the U.S. border, Grillo pinpoints that the United States "is knee-deep in this conflict".[6]
In the British edition, published in September 2011, the book bore the subtitle, "The Bloody Rise of Mexican Drug Cartels". The US edition came out two months later, bearing a different subtitle. A Spanish-language version of the book titled "El narco: En el corazón de la insurgencia criminal mexicana" has also been released.[7]