Federal police officers on the outskirts of Tijuana, Baja California, 2009 © Guillermo Arias
Discussed in this essay:
Drug Cartels Do Not Exist: Narcotrafficking in U.S. and Mexican Culture, by Oswaldo Zavala, translated by William Savinar. Vanderbilt University Press. 206 pages. $34.95.
The Dope: The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade, by Benjamin T. Smith. W. W. Norton. 480 pages. $20.
In 2008, a plane crashed in the heart of Mexico City, near the National Museum of Anthropology. Juan Camilo Mouriño, the interior minister, and José Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, a former prosecutor known for fighting drug cartels, were both killed. The government said it was an accident. But many…
