Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Marijuana Boom is an important book that foregrounds a regional history eclipsed by the subsequent cocaine industry that ‘car-bombed’ Colombia. . . . It approaches this history from multiple thematic angles and diverse geographies of power, with the help of diverse archival sources, newspapers, and interviews."
* European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies *
"This highly readable book will impress scholars across a range of subjects and deserves serious consideration for classroom adoption for courses on drugs, US-Latin American relations, and development and modernization."
* Agricultural History *
"Marijuana Boom is a rich addition to the historiography of the Colombian drug trade, and Britto skilfully avoids the dangers that can arise when an argument incorporates oral histories. The passage of time can produce distortions, which is why archival research tends to dominate in the academic world. Marijuana Boom demonstrates the value in supplementing thorough archival research with the collection and analysis of oral histories."
* Survival: Global Politics and Strategy *
"A significant accomplishment. . . . Britto writes with a journalistic flair that will make her book accessible to undergraduate and graduate students, their professors, and the public at large." * Revista de Estudios Colombianos *
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: A Forgotten History
PART ONE
ASCENDANCE
1 • Wheels of Progress: Tropical Commodities and Regional Formation
2 • Coming from the Mountain: Coffee Contraband and Marijuana Smuggling
PART TWO
PEAK
3 • Santa Marta Gold: Technological Adaptations and Boom
4 • Party Animals: Vallenato Music and Cultural Negotiation
PART THREE
DECLINE
5 • Two Peninsulas: Narcotics Diplomacy and the War on Drugs
6 • Reign of Terror: Criminalization and Violence
Conclusions: A Remembered History
Appendix. Comment on Oral Sources
Notes
Bibliography
Index
