El Narco: Inside Mexico's Criminal Insurgency

El Narco: Inside Mexico's Criminal Insurgency
Front cover
AuthorIoan Grillo
LanguageEnglish
Spanish
SubjectMexican drug war
Genrenon-fiction
PublisherBloomsbury Press
Publication date
October 25, 2011
Pages336
ISBN1608192113

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]

  1. ^ Singal, Jesse (December 15, 2011). "'El Narco by Ioan Grillo". The Boston Globe. Retrieved January 28, 2012.
  2. ^ "'El Narco': The Trade Driving Mexico's Drug War". NPR. October 25, 2011. Retrieved January 28, 2012.
  3. ^ "A War Fought by Assassins: Ioan Grillo on Mexico's Crime Scenes". InSight Crime. November 22, 2011. Archived from the original on November 26, 2011. Retrieved January 28, 2012.
  4. ^ a b "El Narco": A discussion with journalist and author Ioan Grillo". Washington Office on Latin America. Archived from the original on December 27, 2011. Retrieved January 28, 2012.
  5. ^ "El narcotráfico, según Ioan Grillo". Diario de Yucatan (in Spanish). Retrieved January 28, 2012.[permanent dead link]
  6. ^ a b c "El Narco: Inside Mexico's Criminal Insurgency, Description". IndieBound. Archived from the original on September 29, 2013. Retrieved May 11, 2012.
  7. ^ "Insurgencia a la mexicana". Proceso (in Spanish). June 4, 2012. Archived from the original on September 10, 2012. Retrieved September 6, 2012.