|
 |
|
Drug Wars The Political Economy of Narcotics Curtis Marez REVIEWS |
|
$60.00 Cloth |
Investigates the central role of drug trafficking and enforcement in the extension of imperial power. Inaugurated in 1984, America's "War on Drugs" is just the most recent skirmish in a standoff between global drug trafficking and state power. From Britain's nineteenth-century Opium Wars in China to the activities of Colombia's drug cartels and their suppression by U.S.-backed military forces today, conflicts over narcotics have justified imperial expansion, global capitalism, and state violence, even as they have also fueled the movement of goods and labor around the world. In Drug Wars, cultural critic Curtis Marez examines two hundred years of writings, graphic works, films, and music that both demonize and celebrate the commerce in cocaine, marijuana, and opium, providing a bold interdisciplinary exploration of drugs in the popular imagination. Ranging from the writings of Sigmund Freud to pro–drug lord Mexican popular music, gangsta rap, and Brian De Palma's 1983 epic Scarface, Drug Wars moves from the representations and realities of the Opium Wars to the long history of drug and immigration enforcement on the U.S.-Mexican border, and to cocaine use and interdiction in South America, Middle Europe, and among American Indians. Throughout Marez juxtaposes official drug policy and propaganda with subversive images that challenge and sometimes even taunt government and legal efforts. As Marez shows, despite the state's best efforts to use the media to obscure the hypocrisies and failures of its drug policies—be they lurid descriptions of Chinese opium dens in the English popular press or Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" campaign—marginalized groups have consistently opposed the expansion of state power that drug traffic has historically supported. “An engaging cultural studies history of opium, marijuana, and cocaine. Drug Wars is an often brilliant but always challenging monograph whose central thesis is that drug enforcement cannot be segregated from issues of state power and economic interest. This book merits serious attention from scholars, policy analysts, and lawmakers.” —Journal of Popular Culture “The author seeks to compare popular culture and government images of the drug trade and war on drugs. Marez shows how government policy, propaganda, entertainment media and cultural mores all intertwine—and have for some years.” —Communication Booknotes Quarterly “Marez’s Drug Wars trace how and why particular groups of American—police, immigrant laborers, psychiatrists—worked to establish drugs as a public spectacle, infusing them with intense and often contradictory political valences. In Drug Wars, drugs provide a compelling imperial morality tale—a velvet glove to mask the iron fist—and a potentially inspiring symbol of rebellion.” —American Quarterly Curtis Marez is assistant professor of critical studies at the University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television. 384 pages | 20 halftones | 5-7/8 x 9 | 2004 TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface and Acknowledgments Part I: Opium Part II: Marijuana Part III: Cocaine Notes |
||
$19.95 Paper [an error occurred while processing this directive]