PODCAST 38: In the grip of extremism, the US is obsessing about crime to legitimise its hegemony
Tag: Crime
Poor politicians
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Corruption should never be defined by emperors. The Elementary Forms of Corruption: Moral Imagination and Political Change in Brazil, Aaron Ansell, 2025, Hau Books
Categories: Brazil, Mexico, North America, South America
Green is the colour of blood
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Two books about violence
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PODCAST 29: Two recent titles offer lessons about violence in Latin America
Atrocious backstories
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A journalist chronicles how democratic dreams became bloody nightmares. The Years of Blood: Stories from a Reporting Life in Latin America, Alma Guillermoprieto, 2025, Duke University Press
Categories: Bolivia, Central America, Colombia, El Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua, North America, South America, United States, Venezuela
The benefits of mob rule
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In Latin America, crooks reign where states cower. Inside Criminalized Governance: How and Why Gangs Rule the Streets of Rio de Janeiro, Nicholas Barnes, 2025, Cambridge University Press
Categories: Brazil, Central America, Colombia, El Salvador, Mexico, North America, South America
Modernity’s incubator
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Look carefully at Rio de Janeiro—it reflects your future. Rio as Method: Collective Resistance for a New Generation, edited by Paul Amar, 2024, Duke University Press
Categories: Brazil, South America
Beasts in the shadows
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Dread has been a significant factor in the Mexican definition of childhood. The Fear of Robachicos in Mexico: Media, Childhood, and Child Kidnapping 1900–1968, Susana Sosenski, translated by Quentin Pope, 2024, Bloomsbury Academic
Categories: Mexico, North America
Country of the disappeared
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Mexico’s cynical state is often the source of crime, not its scourge. Call the Mothers: Searching for Mexico’s Disappeared in the War on Drugs, Shaylih Muehlmann, 2024, University of California Press
Categories: Mexico, North America
Paradise found
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An Australian exile’s adventures in Colombia are a perfect cure for the malady of stereotypes. Better Than Cocaine: Learning to grow coffee, and live, in Colombia, Barry Max Wills, 2023, Fuller Vigil
Categories: Colombia, South America