Here are 73 books that Kings of Cocaine fans have personally recommended if you like
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Over my two decades as a scholar of American foreign policy and international politics, I had multiple opportunities to serve as a Latin America foreign policy aide. Given that Latin America plays a central role in the U.S.-hatched modern war on drugs, much of my policymaking was directly or indirectly tied to drug policy. I thus wrote Drugs and Thugs above all to make sure that I had a good sense of the history of this seemingly eternal conflict, one that is “fought” as much at home as abroad.
Reding’s book on the methamphetamine epidemic in small-town Ohio is distressing but essential. He is exceptional in showing rather than telling how meth is in so many ways the Great American Drug. It makes you work even more maniacally, for one. And the hollowing out of Middle America makes the drug’s proactive nature even more attractive in these forgotten towns and cities. It is painful that the meth scourge might have eased but, as is so often the case, other destructive substances have quickly replaced it.
A New York Times Bestseller Winner of the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize Winner of the Hillman Prize for Book Journalism
Named a best book of the year by: the Los Angeles Times the San Francisco Chronicle the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch the Chicago Tribune the Seattle Times
"A stunning look at a problem that has dire consequences for our country.”-New York Post
The dramatic story of Methamphetamine as it comes to the American Heartland-a timely, moving, account of one community's attempt to confront the epidemic and see their way to a brighter future.
The bestselling book that launched meth back into…
As a historian of science and medicine, I’m fascinated by the many ways that drugs—from tea to opiates, Prozac to psychedelics—have shaped our world. After all, there are few adults on the planet today who don’t regularly consume substances that have been classified as a drug at one time or another (I’m looking at you, coffee and tea!). The books I’ve selected here have deeply influenced my own thinking on the history of drugs over the past decade, from my first book, The Age of Intoxication, to my new book on the history of psychedelic science.
If I were asked to recommend just one book on the history of drugs, this would be it. Courtwright is an expert in the history of drugs in the nineteenth and twentieth-century United States, but in this book, he zooms out—way out—to think about the larger history of humanity’s relationship to mind-altering substances.
At the book's core is Courtwright’s influential concept of a “psychoactive revolution” that influenced the histories of empire, globalization, and science over the past five centuries. I have been deeply influenced by his approach ever since I first read this book in grad school, and I use it often in my teaching.
What drives the drug trade, and how has it come to be what it is today? A global history of the acquisition of progressively more potent means of altering ordinary waking consciousness, this book is the first to provide the big picture of the discovery, interchange, and exploitation of the planet's psychoactive resources, from tea and kola to opiates and amphetamines.
Over my two decades as a scholar of American foreign policy and international politics, I had multiple opportunities to serve as a Latin America foreign policy aide. Given that Latin America plays a central role in the U.S.-hatched modern war on drugs, much of my policymaking was directly or indirectly tied to drug policy. I thus wrote Drugs and Thugs above all to make sure that I had a good sense of the history of this seemingly eternal conflict, one that is “fought” as much at home as abroad.
A work of intrepid journalism and sizzling writing, Grillo’sEl Narco is the result of upwards of a decade following the mercurial, terrifying evolution of Mexico’s drug cartels. I’ve taught this book to my Davidson College students studying Latin American politics and they repeatedly tell me that it is their favorite book they tackle in the course.
'War' is no exaggeration in discussing the bloodshed that has terrorized Mexico in the past decades. As rival cartels battle for control of a billion-dollar drug trade, the body count- 23,000 dead in five years - and sheer horror beggar the imagination of journalistic witnesses. Cartel gunmen have shot up schools and rehabilitation centers, and murdered the entire families of those who defy them. Reformers and law enforcement officials have been gunned down within hours of taking office. Headless corpses are dumped on streets to intimidate rivals, and severed heads are rolled onto dancefloors as messages to would-be opponents. And…
My journey with mental health started young and has colored my life for as long as I can remember. So, I have a fascination with storytelling and time. Time is the container for stories. But for a long time, I didn’t understand the depth of what ‘story’ really is and how much it shapes everything. When I started to write my book and unravel how inseparable the story is from the mental health journey I’d been on, my appetite for writing that could help me understand that connection became and remains voracious. I hope these books are as impactful for you as they have been for me. Enjoy!
As someone with bipolar 2, I’ve struggled with addiction and compulsive behavior all my life. And for so long, those behaviors kept me locked in a cycle of shame. I was told that addiction is an incurable illness, which tethered me to my own story of brokenness.
This book helped me reframe my entire understanding of drugs, addiction, and how the war on drugs has done far more harm than good. It helped me understand that addiction is not a personal fundamental flaw but a symptom of broader systemic issues whose impacts are expressed through individuals, creating a culture of rejection and isolation.
Most importantly, it helped me release the story of shame and powerlessness that I’d inherited, and that had been reinforced by rehab and so many clinical interactions. It was as if someone had turned on a light in the basement of shame and pointed out a staircase…
What if everything you think you know about addiction is wrong? Johann Hari's journey into the heart of the war on drugs led him to ask this question--and to write the book that gave rise to his viral TED talk, viewed more than 62 million times, and inspired the feature film The United States vs. Billie Holiday and the documentary series The Fix.
One of Johann Hari's earliest memories is of trying to wake up one of his relatives and not being able to. As he grew older, he realized he had addiction in his…
I study people-plant relationships from perspectives including ecology, history, cultural studies, and biogeography. Cannabis is certainly the most famous plant I’ve studied. A decade ago I was researching how Africans used an obscure tree in historical Central America, and came across accounts of cannabis use that surprised me. As I dug into cannabis history, I was continually amazed at how little the topic has been researched. It’s a great time to start learning about the plant’s past, because it’s a fresh, new field for professional academics. Cannabis has been portrayed so simplistically for decades, but in reality it’s a complex plant with a complicated history.
The association between Colombia and cocaine is strong in popular culture, but the cocaine economy rose upon the country’s experience with marijuana production and trafficking starting in the 1970s. Britto completed remarkable research, on the ground with people who were involved in marijuana trading. This is one of a few books that offer such a window into the illegal world of cannabis.
Before Colombia became one of the world's largest producers of cocaine in the 1980s, traffickers from the Caribbean coast partnered with American buyers in the 1970s to make the South American country the main supplier of marijuana for a booming US drug market, fueled by the US hippie counterculture. How did Colombia become central to the creation of an international drug trafficking circuit? Marijuana Boom is the story of this forgotten history. Combining deep archival research with unprecedented oral history, Lina Britto deciphers a puzzle: Why did the Colombian coffee republic, a model of Latin American representative democracy and economic…
I've always had a passion for reading deep personal stories that provide me with a better understanding of the world and equip me with the tools and life lessons I need to continue growing as a person. I believe that storytelling's vulnerability is one of the most powerful instruments for self-reflection, self-healing, and ultimately, for us to evolve into better versions of ourselves through introspection.
Growing up in a household where both of my parents battled crack addiction was extremely difficult. It caused deep-seated feelings of resentment, anger, and a profound lack of trust in both my parents and society as a whole. Not being able to rely on my parents, and witnessing them consistently choose drugs over their family, was incredibly painful, especially for a child.
Reading this book brought me closer to my parents and helped me understand that their addiction was just a symptom of a much larger issue that extended beyond our home. I found a connection with characters like Elgin Swift and delving into the crack epidemic during the time my parents were growing up was truly eye-opening.
This experience allowed me to feel a deeper bond with my parents and gain a better understanding of their struggles.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who has loved ones facing…
A “vivid and frank” (NPR) account of the crack cocaine era and a community’s ultimate resilience, told through a cast of characters whose lives illuminate the dramatic rise and fall of the epidemic
“A poignant and compelling re-examination of a tragic era in America history . . . insightful . . . and deeply moving.”—Bryan Stevenson, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Just Mercy
The crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s is arguably the least examined crisis in American history. Beginning with the myths inspired by Reagan’s war on drugs, journalist Donovan X. Ramsey’s exacting analysis traces…
I’m a window-seat person. If I’m on a trip, I want to see much
more than the device propelling me forward. In crime books, the vehicle is
always the crime, but I want that felonious little engine to also propel me
through realms where I become more explorer than passenger, where I’ve entered marvelous
and unexpected worlds that become characters in themselves. It almost doesn’t
matter what that world is, whether it’s 19th-century Chicago
architecture, bitcoin cartels or octopus linguistics. As long as it’s well-researched and rendered with depth, precision, and passion, your ticket to a
crime gets you at least two books, or even genres, for one!
My favorite true crime books—and most of my favorite non-fiction books—tend to be character-driven, read like novels, and tell a larger story through the protagonist’s lens. I found myself getting lost in George Jung’s journey as a drug smuggler and loving that sometimes it felt almost incidental that he was at the criminal nexus of a massive cultural phenomenon taking place.
I also love it when books and protagonists create conflicting emotional reactions. Jung’s likeability, coupled with the destructiveness of the business he helped pioneer, rings true to life; I found myself rooting for him at times, then despising him, and always wondering where the chips would fall in this improbable journey.
BLOW is the unlikely story of George Jung's roller coaster ride from middle-class high school football hero to the heart of Pable Escobar's Medellin cartel-- the largest importer of the United States cocaine supply in the 1980s. Jung's early business of flying marijuana into the United States from the mountains of Mexico took a dramatic turn when he met Carlos Lehder, a young Colombian car thief with connections to the then newly born cocaine operation in his native land. Together they created a new model for selling cocaine, turning a drug used primarily by the entertainment elite into a massive…
I learned from a young age to question everything. The law always interested me, but I was an impatient high school graduate who instead completed a journalism cadetship in Sydney, Australia. I always loved police reporting and the ability to get inside the ‘real’ story where few others could. There is a certain pleasure observing the lives of (witting or unwitting) criminals and an element of “there by the grace…” too! I’ve always empathised with the underdog and the Drug Grannies were indeed just that. I believed there was more to their story. Earning their trust was important. I threw myself into their fight – more an activist than a journalist!
This is an outstanding inside look that goes well, well beyond the typical “whistleblower”-type tomes.
Keith Banks was a copper for 20 years in one of Australia’s most corrupt police organisations – the Queensland Police Force. During the 1980s, he let his hair grow, then down, and went undercover as a drug cop. As Banks says: “Undercover was like guerrilla warfare; to understand your enemy, you had to walk amongst them, to become them.”
Some of the decisions he had to make about allowing drugs – including heroin – get onto the street, and into the arms of kids barely into their teens in order to track down the major suppliers, are heartbreaking. This has to be one of the best Australian true crime/memoirs in many decades.
'Banks has told his story in a raw and honest autobiography. It is the best true crime book published in Australia in a decade.' -John Silvester, Crime Reporter for The Age
Undercover was like guerrilla warfare; to understand your enemy, you had to walk amongst them, to become them. The trick was to keep an eye on that important line between who you were and who you were pretending to be.
This is the true story of Keith Banks, one of Queensland's most decorated police officers, and his journey into the world of drugs as an undercover operative in the…
By Akwasi Owusu-Bempah and Tahira Rehmatullah
Author
Why are we passionate about this?
As a duo, we’re a mix of things. For Akwasi, I’m a changemaker, professor, and academic. My work examines the intersections of race, crime, and criminal justice, and my current research spans criminal justice institutions and various aspects of drug legalization in Canada and beyond. For Tahira, my career has been less than linear, with experiences spanning the investment, cannabis, and consumer sectors as an investor and entrepreneur. I realized my forte lies in sitting in the middle, streamlining complexity, and remaining dedicated to the people who need help most. Together, we’re committed to shaping the future of business and policy by integrating diverse perspectives and lived experiences.
We’re drawn to books that tell real stories to help personify topics, and Dan’s book does just that. We thought it was gripping and intense, with great lines that we returned to highlight.
Although it was written in the 90s, the message still resonates, as well as the realization that the fights are long and hard but worth it.
For sheer government absurdity, the War on Drugs is hard to beat. After three decades of increasingly punitive policies, illicit drugs are more easily available, drug potencies are greater, drug killings are more common, and drug barons are richer than ever. The War on Drugs costs Washington more than the Commerce, Interior, and State departments combined - and it's the one budget item whose growth is never questioned. A strangled court system, exploding prisons, and wasted lives push the cost beyond measure. What began as a flourish of campaign rhetoric in 1968 has grown into a monster. And while nobody…
Phil Halton has worked in conflict zones around the world as an officer in the Canadian Army and as a security consultant and has extensive experience in Afghanistan. He is the author of two novels and a history.He holds a Master's Degree in Defence Studies from Royal Military College of Canada, and a Graduate Certificate in Creative Writing from Humber College.
Drug trafficking has become entwined with Afghanistan in the minds of many, though the true situation is often misunderstood. Bradford’s meticulous research not only clearly explains the present situation, it places it in the broader historical context that is almost always missing. The legal trade in opium has deep roots in Afghanistan, and even in the present day, there are as many senior government officials benefiting from it as there are insurgent leaders. He also explores the growing problem with addiction that plagues Afghanistan, humanizing a complex problem.
Historians have long neglected Afghanistan's broader history when portraying the opium industry. But in Poppies, Politics, and Power, James Tharin Bradford rebalances the discourse, showing that it is not the past forty years of lawlessness that makes the opium industry what it is, but the sheer breadth of the twentieth-century Afghanistan experience. Rather than byproducts of a failed contemporary system, argues Bradford, drugs, especially opium, were critical components in the formation and failure of the Afghan state.
In this history of drugs and drug control in Afghanistan, Bradford shows us how the country moved from licit supply of the global…
