Benjamin T. Smith, "The Dope: The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade" (W. W. Norton, 2021)

Benjamin T. Smith, "The Dope: The Real Histor...

Up next

Javiera Barandiaran, "Living Minerals: Nature, Trade, and Power in the Race for Lithium" (MIT Press, 2026)

A sobering investigation of the rush for lithium for electric vehicles, the problematic history of lithium mining, and the consequences for sustainability. Consumers today are buying electric vehicles with lithium-ion batteries motivated by the belief that they are doing good and ...  Show more

The Power of the State: Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, and Minneapolis

When young people began disappearing in Argentina, their mothers searched for answers. Despite laws prohibiting protests and political gatherings, the women still met to walk the Plaza de Mayo, a central square in Buenos Aires near the president’s residence. The government worked ...  Show more

Recommended Episodes

Bonus: Killer drug: Fentanyl in Mexico and the US
The Documentary Podcast

Fentanyl is deadly. Thousands of Americans die every year from a drug overdose – the majority of them after using a synthetic opioid like fentanyl. It was developed as a legal, and effective, pain killer. Now, fuelled by insatiable US demand, it is illicitly produced in makeshift ...  Show more

The Cartel Heroin Queenpin Who Ran Juarez for 50 Years with Benjamin Smith
The Underworld Podcast

Before El Mencho or El Chapo, even before Pablo Escobar, there was Ignacia Jasso, otherwise known as “La Nacha.” She was the Queen Pin of Juárez who ran the border heroin trade for 50 years from 1930 to 1980. Declared public enemy number one by the Americans, she still managed to ...  Show more

Killer drug: The Mexico connection
The Documentary Podcast

Fentanyl is deadly. Thousands of Americans die every year from a drug overdose – the majority of them after using a synthetic opioid like fentanyl. Fentanyl was developed as a legal, and effective, pain killer. Now, fuelled by insatiable US demand, it’s illicitly produced in make ...  Show more

Killer drug: Fentanyl in the US
The Documentary Podcast

Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, is destroying lives all over the United States. Manufactured illegally and at a huge profit by drug cartels in Mexico, it’s smuggled across the border into southern California and Arizona. The director at one entry point on the border acknowledges th ...  Show more