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Amexica: War Along the Borderline Hardcover – 7 Oct 2010

by
Ed Vulliamy (Author)
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Ed Vulliamy (Author)
3.6 out of 5 stars 19 customer reviews
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Bodley Head; 1st edition (7 Oct. 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1847921280
  • ISBN-13: 978-1847921284
  • Product Dimensions: 16.2 x 3.5 x 24 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 789,286 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Review

"Previously, to understand the ruthlessness, ambition and impact of today's global criminals, you needed to read Roberto Saviano's Gomorrah and Misha Glenny's McMafia. Now, you also need to read Vulliamy's Amexica’"--The Sunday Times

Book Description

The harrowing story of the extraordinary terror unfolding along the US-Mexico border - this is the secret war of drugs, gangs and guns that is destroying thousands of lives.

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsCiudad's cartels, Juarez's junkies, and El Paso's exiles
By Mr. D Burin on 26 Jun. 2011
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
A wonderful piece of investigative journalism, Ed Vuillamy's `Amexica' creates a complex and nuanced portrait of the US-Mexican border, and deals in depth with both its troubles, and the attempts at community and at improvement which exist in these communities often ravaged by drug addiction, violence and poverty (especially, though not exclusively, on the Mexican side). Vuillamy interviews a number of important figures, from the exhausted, exploited Mexican truck drivers of `Ventesies' (a truck-stop and major meeting point for Mexico's truckers), to those working with the domestically abused, and with both local officials, and ordinary citizens living amongst the terror and anarchy of cities like Ciudad Juarez. Vuillamy also integrates newspaper stories, tales of `narcocorridos' (folk songs about the drug runners and cartels), and histories of both the towns and cities he visits, and how and why the drug trade boomed in those areas; and what legacies that led to. Viewing the war as `post-political', with both the police and the armed forces often involved in partnerships with the Cartels; Vuillamy also puts forward alarming and fascinating arguments as to why the drugs war is borne out of macho posturing, envy of women finding work, the want to own the best cars and clothes, and other such issues; theories backed up by the comments of local workers like Esther Chavez, who elucidates fantastically the reasons for the murders of the maquiladoras (factory girls) across Mexico's borderline.

Vuillamy also explores the American side, though in a little less detail, focusing on the illegal flow of guns from the US, to the Mexican cartels (guns being illegal in Mexico), and the high calibre of weapons, like AK-47s, which the Cartels possess.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsSavage border
By K. A. Noles on 5 Jan. 2011
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
There's more to this book than meets the eye. All too often the only news the outside world hears from Mexico these days relates to the drug-fuelled violence which has killed tens of thousands in the last few years. In many ways this is understandable as the violence has reached an intensely savage level but there's a bigger picture here and Ed Vulliamy has set out in this book to place the violence in a wider context. That doesn't mean you're spared any details though, far from it. Whether it's the guy arrested for dissolving 300 bodies in acid or the beauty queens kidnapped, tortured and killed because of their alleged allegiance to a rival cartel the litany of extreme violence goes on and on.

The source of it all is America's lust for drugs - a trade worth an estimated 300 billion dollars a year with the border seeing the drugs going in one direction and guns bought in the US going in the other. The violence is about control of the 'plazas' or key crossing points with huge profits at stake for those who win control. But in the end all of it comes down to individual human stories and this is where Ed Vulliamy has done such a great job with most of the book told through the eyes of dozens of different people. It's often difficult reading though and not for the faint hearted and you have to wonder how the author manages to cope with what he bears witness to.

Amexica is a borderland of extremes and this book provides a window into a terrifying world.
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2.0 out of 5 starsBorderline terrible
By A. Naish on 22 Sept. 2012
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
The disintegration of social order in north Mexico is a fascinating and worthy topic for investigation. Unfortunately, Mr Vulliamy is not the man to conduct it: inchoate in form, labyrinthine in prose and often banal in observation, Amexica cries out for an editor with a machete and a large red pen -- someone who might have rescued a passable 150 pages from this sprawling and scrappy piece of work.

The narrative has been fashioned as a kind of road trip along the border, following the author eastwards from Tijuana to the Gulf with a loose division of topics between chapters (drugs, migration, maquiladoras, guns etc.). This structure presumably appealed for its simplicity; in the end, I'm afraid it offers very little structure at all, since each chapter makes a partial rehash of prior material (drugs inevitably feature everywhere), and the rambling verbosity verges on incoherence.

Needlessly elaborate sentence structure makes life harder still (at one point, apparently without irony, the author expresses his disregard for Hemingway, and one can't help wondering what a great book he might have fashioned from this material). Above all, Mr Vulliamy cannot resist adjectives -- ten when none will do. Sentimental, judgmental, usually superfluous, they are attached to each remark or statistic with enervating effect. Sometimes the author strays beyond his vocabulary into curious malapropisms (a landscape is "arraigned" at one point). At other times he appears to be trying his hand at poetry, like a child with a thesaurus:

"The hinges of hell would cool this land; it is a pyrexia ...Read more ›
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3.0 out of 5 starsImperfect, but worth a read
By WillFColombia on 9 Aug. 2013
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
Ed Vulliamy's Amexica, an account of a journey along the gang-infested US/Mexican border, is a curious book.

All the good stuff, of which there is a lot, is hidden away behind a writing style that at times leaves one open-mouthed. And not in a good way.

An example, typical, sentence - "here, at apparently reasonable prices, is a fanfaronade of cakes decorated electric pink, yellow or blue". Eh? A what of cakes?

Maybe Vulliamy just needs a good editor. At least then we might avoid the numerous typos and an annoying mixture (or maybe that should be fanfaronade?) of British and American English.

Still worth a read though.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsAn excellent introduction into America / Mexico's dark underbelly.

This is a really great, well written account of what is happening to the borderlands. Great for those who are reading for the first time on the region. Read more

Published 14 months ago by Richard N.
5.0 out of 5 starsA passionate author

Very well written and researched, right from the beginning it is very clear how passionate the author is about the subject. Read more

Published 18 months ago by thomas
4.0 out of 5 starsFour Stars

well satisfied with item

Published on 10 Nov. 2014 by Andrew Bentley
5.0 out of 5 starsscary

a shockingly interesting book well documented focusing on the cartels rise to power how they have come to control the police and politicians and influence the army. Read more

Published on 23 Feb. 2014 by m. dosa
1.0 out of 5 starsUnreadable

The subject matter of this book has the potential to provide an engrossing read. It's an important subject for us all, too, the coming of the barbarians. Read more

Published on 20 Dec. 2012 by Mr. Thomas P. King
1.0 out of 5 starsAmexica by Ed Vulliamy

I too have never previousy submitted a review, but was prompted to do so because of the appauling quality of this book. Read more

Published on 21 Jun. 2012 by J P Kent
1.0 out of 5 starsUnreadable - unsure why it got such good reviews - v suspicious

This is the first review I have ever written but it has to be said that this book is unreadable. The subject matter is fascinating and exciting, but the auther cannot write. Read more

Published on 30 May 2012 by JonGuinness
3.0 out of 5 starshmm I made it to the end

Basically an ok read but was a bit like a reference book in places so slightly boring, although mostly in my opinion well researched and written. Read more

Published on 20 Feb. 2012 by burt
5.0 out of 5 starsRealtiy is scarier than fiction

Heavy topic but well written and gripping. This book reveals just how badly the drug trade affects the lives of everyone living near the mexico-america border. Read more

Published on 19 Jan. 2012 by alana milne
3.0 out of 5 starsInteresting

Interesting book, but can be heavy going. Better to dip in and out of as it can get a bit repetitive. Read more

Published on 8 Dec. 2011 by Simon Nicholls

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