American Drug War Journal Syllabus
Library of Congress classification HV5800 section, basically
Putting this up as a sticky.
Y’all ain’t really gonna know what I’m talking about if you don’t do the work. (I get to say “y’all”; I picked it up early on, in my travels as an Army brat.) Pay your dues. Hit the books. In particular, the books that I’ve already read (and sometimes re-read) that have supplied me with the erudition to talk about this history. I’ve read several hundred of them. So I’ve since gotten into Curation.
I’ll start with the 20 25 most important histories of the US Drug War. Only the first one consists entirely of a history of US international law enforcement antidrug and interdiction efforts in the decades before the Nixon administration (1969-1974), which is the era when the global and domestic “War On Drugs” got its name and its funding boost, roughly coincident with the 1972 amendment of the U.N. Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961. (Richard M. Nixon, President; George H. W. Bush, Ambassador to the U.N.)
(The top 5 to be read from cover to cover are marked with an asterisk *. )
This list is best read in order; that order provides a chronology of the history, taking it from the top as the earliest era covered, down to the most recent. There’s only a very loose correlation with the date of publication for the book editions, so don’t mind it. Or, readers might prefer to read the list in order from the bottom up, to begin with the most recent era and work backwards through the history. Or hey, just skip around. But get started.
Strength Of The Wolf, by Douglas Valentine
Strength Of The Pack, by Douglas Valentine
*The Underground Empire, by James Mills
*Hot Money and the Politics of Debt, by R. T. Naylor (1994 ed.)
Whitewash, by Simon Strong
The Politics Of Heroin, Alfred McCoy
*Cocaine Politics, Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall
Rebellion In The Veins, by James Dunkerley
The Big White Lie, by Michael Levine
Smoke And Mirrors: The Paradox of the Drug Wars, by Jaime Malamud-Goti
Inside The League, John Anderson and Jon Lee Anderson
Dangerous Liasons, Andrew Cockburn and Leslie Cockburn
The Revolutionary Mystique and Terrorism in Contemporary Italy, by Richard Drake (Chapter 7, “Children Of The Sun”, is sufficient)
Argentina, the United States, and the Anti-Communist Crusade in Central America, 1977-1984, by Ariel C. Armony
The Bluegrass Connection, by Sally Denton
America’s Prisoner: The Memoirs of Manuel Noriega, by Manuel Noriega and Peter Eisner
Deep Cover, by Michael Levine
Partners In Power, by Roger Morris
Dark Alliance, by Gary Webb
McMafia, by Misha Glenny
*Bribes, Bullets, and Intimidation, by Julie Marie Munck and Michael Ross Fowler
Illicit, by Moises Naim
Down By The River, by Charles Bowden
*Murder City, by Charles Bowden
Gangster Warlords, by Ioan Grillo
A Narco History, by Carmen Boullosa & Mike Wallace
Get on with it- a syllabus handout doesn’t come with reviews! Not yet, anyway. Inquiring minds like readers of this journal should be allowed some time to peruse the references and draw their own conclusions. Remember- the newest editions are usually (although not always) preferable.And understand that I don’t intend to footnote my Drug War History posts much, at least not here. I can’t stop any fake-credential-seeking self-entitled phony college child from cribbing my posts and plaigiarizing me wholesale. But they’re on their own about the footnotes.