With a nasty irony, contemporary Mexico's most important phenomenon, the drug trade, has been the least historically understood. This book changes that. The methodological, conceptual, and empirical heft of Histories of Drug Trafficking in Twentieth-Century Mexico make it essential reading for scholars of modern Mexico.--Paul Gillingham, author of Cuauhtémoc's Bones: Forging National Identity in Modern Mexico

“A cutting-edge, boots-on-the-ground approach to researching drug trafficking provides us with new insights gleaned from archival collections only recently opened to the public.”—Andrae M. Marak, coeditor of Smugglers, Brothels, and Twine: Historical Perspectives on Contraband and Vice in North America’s Borderlands

“A cutting-edge, boots-on-the-ground approach to researching drug trafficking provides us with new insights gleaned from archival collections only recently opened to the public.”—Andrae M. Marak, coeditor of Smugglers, Brothels, and Twine: Historical Perspectives on Contraband and Vice in North America’s Borderlands

“A groundbreaking book. . . . At last, a history of drugs in Mexico that goes beyond kingpins and explores instead the complex network of complicities, political interests, cultural determinants, and economic ramifications underpinning the trade.”—Gema Kloppe-Santamaría, author of In the Vortex of Violence: Lynching, Extralegal Justice, and the State in Post-Revolutionary Mexico