Benjamin T. Smith
Professor of Latin American History at the University of Warwick. Has been writing about Mexico for over twenty years, starting with archival research in the villages, churches, and markets of Oaxaca. Earlier work focused on indigenous politics, Catholicism, conservatism, newspapers, journalism, censorship, and civil society. Now specializes in twentieth-century politics, the narcotics trade, and crime. Also provides expert witness accounts for Mexican asylum seekers escaping gang violence.
Major works include The Dope: The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade (2021, nominated for Edgar True Crime Award), The Mexican Press and Civil Society, 1940-1976 (2018, LASA Howard Cline Award winner), Pistoleros and Popular Movements (2009), and The Roots of Conservatism in Mexico (2012). Co-editor of Histories of Drug Trafficking in Twentieth-Century Mexico (2022) and Beyond the Drug War in Mexico (2017) with Wil Pansters.
Referenced by
- sourcesHistories of Drug Trafficking in Twentieth-Century Mexico
- sourcesBeyond the Drug War in Mexico: Human Rights, the Public Sphere and Justice
- sourcesMexico's Dirty War: A Reassessment
- sourcesThe Last Harvest? From the US Fentanyl Boom to the Mexican Opium Crisis
- sourcesState, Crime, and Violence in Mexico, 1920-2000: Arbiters of Impunity, Agents of Coercion
- sourcesThe Mexican Press and Civil Society, 1940-1976: Stories from the Newsroom, Stories from the Street
- sourcesThe Rise and Fall of Narcopopulism: Drugs, Politics, and Society in Sinaloa, 1930-1980
- sourcesUS Moral Panics, Mexican Politics, and the Borderlands Origins of the War on Drugs, 1950-62
- sourcesSaints and Demons: Putting La Santa Muerte in Historical Perspective
- sourcesThe Dope: The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade
- notesHow Counter-Narcotics Created the Cartels: Northern Mexico 1969–1989