A myth-busting, 100-year history of the Mexican drug trade that reveals how an industry founded by farmers and village healers became dominated by cartels and kingpins.The Mexican drug trade has inspired prejudiced narratives of a war between north and south, white and brown; between noble cops and vicious kingpins, corrupt politicians and powerful cartels. In this first comprehensive history of the trade, historian Benjamin T. Smith tells the real story of how and...

Mexico today is one of the most dangerous places in the world to report the news, and Mexicans have taken to the street to defend freedom of expression. As Benjamin T. Smith demonstrates in this history of the press and civil society, the cycle of violent repression and protest over journalism is nothing new. He traces it back to the growth in newspaper production and reading publics between 1940 and 1976, when a national thirst for tabloids, crime sheets, and magazines reached far beyond ...

In 1910 Mexicans rebelled against an imperfect dictatorship; after 1940 they ended up with what some called the perfect dictatorship. A single party ruled Mexico for over seventy years, holding elections and talking about revolution while overseeing one of the world's most inequitable economies. The contributors to this groundbreaking collection revise earlier interpretations, arguing that state power was not based exclusively on hegemony, corporatism, or violence. Force was real, but it w...

This volume aims to go beyond the study of developments within Mexico’s criminal world and their relationship with the state and law enforcement. It focuses instead on the nature and consequences of what we call the ‘totalization of the drug war’, and its projection on other domains which are key to understanding the nature of Mexican democracy.The volume brings together chapters written by distinguished scholars from Mexico and elsewhere who deal with three major questions: what a...

The Mexican drug trade has inspired prejudiced narratives of a war between north and south, white and brown; between noble cops and vicious kingpins, corrupt politicians and powerful cartels. In this first comprehensive history of the trade, scholar Benjamin T. Smithtells the real story of how and why this once-peaceful industry turned violent. He uncovers its origins and explains how this illicit business essentially built modern Mexico, affecting everything from agriculture to med...

**Brought to you by Penguin.The real story that inspired the BBC drama, The Gold**On Saturday, 26 November 1983, an armed gang stole gold bullion worth almost £26 million from the Brink's-Mat security depot near London's Heathrow Airport. It was the largest robbery in world history, and only the start of an extraordinary story. For forty years, myths and legends have grown around the Brink's-Mat heist and the events that followed.The heist led to a wave of ...

Brought to you by Penguin.London, September 1978: exiled Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov is murdered in broad daylight on Waterloo Bridge with what appears to be a poison-tipped umbrella. It would become the most infamous unsolved killing of the Cold War.Many years later, young journalist Ulrik Skotte is approached with explosive new information about a man alleged to be responsible for Markov’s death – a spy code-named Piccadilly who wor...

The inspirational and honest first book from S Club legend Rachel StevensWhether as part of the iconic S Club or as a successful solo artist, Rachel Stevens was in the eye of the Noughties pop storm when she was catapulted to fame in her teens. The whirlwind of celebrity life brought glamour, glitz and BRITs, but not everything was as it seemed behind the smile.Constantly stereotyped and controlled within the industry, Rachel privately struggled with her se...

**Brought to you by Penguin.Exams, grades, league tables, Ofsted reports. All of them miss the point of school and together they are undermining our whole approach to education.**What is school for? Drawing on his twenty years as a teacher, hundreds of interviews and his experience on the UK Government's Social Mobility Commission, head teacher Sammy Wright exposes the fundamental misconception at the heart of our education system. By focussing on the grades pupils get in n...

From a journalist and foreign correspondent, the harrowing history of how an economic crisis and far-right extremists catalyzed a shocking resurgence of violence in 21st-century Germany.Not long after the Berlin Wall fell, three teenagers became friends in the East German town of Jena. It was a time of excitement, but also of economic crisis: some four million East Germans found themselves out of jobs. The friends began attending far-right rallies with people who c...

**Read by the author, John Cooper Clarke.'Nothing short of dazzling' – Alex Turner**Dr John Cooper Clarke's dazzling, scabrous voice has reverberated through pop culture for decades, his influence on generations of performance poets and musicians plain for all to see. In WHAT, the original 'People's Poet' comes storming out of the gate with an uproarious new collection, reminding us why he is one of Britain's most beloved writers and performers. James Brow...

The mafia are closer than you think...For most of us in Britain, the Mafia seems as distant as the characters in "Goodfellas," "Gomorrah," or "The Godfather" trilogy. However, the truth is far more sinister.Drawing from his groundbreaking Sky series, renowned journalist and fearless investigator Ross Kemp delves into the depths of the Mafia's influence within the UK - unveiling the Mafia bosses, capos, and hitmen who work next door, from caravan parks to sh...