The brutal journey of two American kids from normal teenagers to Cartel killers.At first glance, Gabriel Cardona was the poster boy American teenager: athletic, bright, handsome and charismatic. But the streets of his border town of Laredo, Texas, were poor and dangerous, and it wasn't long before Gabriel, along with some childhood friends, abandoned his promising future for the allure of the Zetas, a drug cartel with roots in the Mexican military, boosting cars an...

This harrowing tale of early twentieth century New York reveals the true stories of an immigrant underworld, a secret vice squad, and the rise of organized crime.In the early 1900s, prior to World War I, New York City was a vortex of vice and corruption. On the Lower East Side, then the most crowded ghetto on earth, Eastern European Jews formed a dense web of crime syndicates. Gangs of horse poisoners and casino owners, pimps and prostitutes, thieves and thugs, joc...

** Previously published in hardcover as Love in the Time of Algorithms **Once considered the realm of the lonely and desperate, sites like eHarmony, Match, OkCupid, and Plenty of Fish have been embraced by pretty much every demographic. Dating has been transformed from a daunting transaction based on scarcity to one in which the possibilities are almost endless. Now anyone can search for exactly what they want, connect with more people, and get more information about those people t...

Why some of Asia’s authoritarian regimes have democratized as they have grown richer—and why others haven’tOver the past century, Asia has been transformed by rapid economic growth, industrialization, and urbanization—a spectacular record of development that has turned one of the world’s poorest regions into one of its richest. Yet Asia’s record of democratization has been much more uneven, despite the global correlation between development and democracy. Why have ...

“If online dating can blunt the emotional pain of separation, if adults can afford to be increasingly demanding about what they want from a relationship, the effect of online dating seems positive. But what if it’s also the case that the prospect of finding an ever more compatible mate with the click of a mouse means a future of relationship instability, a paradox of choice that keeps us chasing the illusive bunny around the dating track?”It’s the mother of all sea...

Like the postcolonial world more generally, Southeast Asia exhibits tremendous variation in state capacity and authoritarian durability. Ordering Power draws on theoretical insights dating back to Thomas Hobbes to develop a unified framework for explaining both of these political outcomes. States are especially strong and dictatorships especially durable when they have their origins in 'protection pacts': broad elite coalitions unified by shared support for heightened state power and tight...

Canonical theories of political economy struggle to explain patterns of distribution in authoritarian regimes. In this Element, Albertus, Fenner, and Slater challenge existing models and introduce an alternative, supply-side, and state-centered theory of 'coercive distribution'. Authoritarian regimes proactively deploy distributive policies as advantageous strategies to consolidate their monopoly on power. These policies contribute to authoritarian durability by undercutting rival elites a...

The true story of two American teenagers turned cartel assassins—and the Mexican American detective who fought to stop them. Wolf Boys is “a hell of a story…undeniably gripping” (The New York Times), a harrowing nonfiction thriller that reads like a crime novel but is rooted in extraordinary investigative reporting.Journalist Dan Slater tells the unforgettable tale of Gabriel Cardona, a bright and promising Laredo, Texas, teenager who becomes one ...

This harrowing tale of early twentieth century New York reveals the true stories of an immigrant underworld, a secret vice squad, and the rise of organized crime.In the early 1900s, prior to World War I, New York City was a vortex of vice and corruption. On the Lower East Side, then the most crowded ghetto on earth, Eastern European Jews formed a dense web of crime syndicates. Gangs of horse poisoners and casino owners, pimps and prostitutes, thieves and thugs, joc...

“If online dating can blunt the emotional pain of separation, if adults can afford to be increasingly demanding about what they want from a relationship, the effect of online dating seems positive. But what if it’s also the case that the prospect of finding an ever more compatible mate with the click of a mouse means a future of relationship instability, a paradox of choice that keeps us chasing the illusive bunny around the dating track?”It’s the mother of all search problems: how...

What’s it like to be an employee of a global drug-trafficking organisation? And how does a 15 year old American boy go from star quarterback to trained assassin, surging up the cartel corporate ladder? At first glance, Gabriel Cardona is the poster boy American teenager: great athlete, bright, handsome, and charismatic. But the streets of his border town of Laredo, Texas, are poor and dangerous, and it isn’t long before Gabriel abandons his promising future for the allure of the Zetas, a d...