Prof Benjamin Smith
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Room: 3.19, third floor of the Faculty of Arts Building Tel: 44 (0)24 76523422 (internal extension 23422) email: b.smith.1@warwick.ac.uk Office hours: Monday, 1-2 and Wednesday 11-12 or by appointment. Twitter: @benjamintsmith7 Website: www.thedope.co.uk |
Academic Profile
- Professor of Latin American History, University of Warwick (2019-present)
- Reader of Latin American History, University of Warwick (2016-2019)
- Associate Professor of Latin American History, University of Warwick (2013-2016)
- Assistant/Associate Professor of Mexican History, Michigan State University (2005-2012)
- PhD in History, Cambridge University (2006)
Teaching
- AM101 Latin America: Themes and Problems (first-year undergraduate History option module)
- HI2E A History of Modern Mexico (second-year undergraduate History option module)
- AM421 The Drug Trade in the Americas (final-year Advanced Option)
- Narcos: A Global History of the Drug Trade (HI3T6-30)
Research
“People see what they want to see and what people want to see never has anything to do with the truth.” Roberto Bolaño, 2666
I have been writing about Mexico for over twenty years. As a historian of nineteenth and twentieth-century grassroots politics, I started my research in the archives, villages, churches, and markets of the predominantly indigenous state of Oaxaca. Since then I have branched out to write about about indigenous politics, Catholicism, conservatism, newspapers, journalism, censorship and civil society.
Now I tend to specialize on twentieth-century politics, the narcotics trade and crime. My most recent book, The Dope: The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade was published by Ebury/Norton in 2021. If you want to know more about it, go to www.thedope.co.uk.
I am currently working on a collection of essays on how the study of organised crime challenges fundamental ideas about state formation, capitalism, and corruption. I am debating whether to call it "Notes from the Underworld" or "Welcome to the Impuniverse". I am also about to finish a biography of Ciudad Juárez drug trafficker, Ignacia "La Nacha" Jasso tentatively entitled "Queenpin: How one woman ran the border drug trade".
I teach an introductory course on Latin American history, a second year course on Mexican history, a second year course on contemporary politics, a second year course on the global history of organised crime (in Venice) and an interdisciplinary 400-level course on the history of the global drug trade
Outside teaching, I have a literary agent at Janklow & Nesbitt, I provide expert witness reports for Mexican refugees in the United Kingdom and the United States (see Rights in Exile) and I am honored and slightly surprised to be a member of the Noria: Mexico and Central America research program.
Publications
Books
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Pistoleros and Popular Movements: The Politics of State Formation in Postrevolutionary Oaxaca (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009) How the Mexican Revolution came to Mexico’s most diverse, indigenous state. And the politicians, peasants, village strongmen, and market women who shaped it. |
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The Roots of Conservatism in Mexico: Catholicism, Society, and Politics in the Mixteca Baja, 1750-1962 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2012). An ethnohistorical study of why peasants embraced the Catholic church and Mexico's national conservative parties. |
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(with Paul Gillingham) Dictablanda: Politics, Work, and Culture in Mexico, 1938–1968 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014). A collection of essays on the creation of the Mexican PRI state. |
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(With Wil Pansters and Peter Watt), Beyond the Drug War in Mexico: Human rights, the public sphere and justice (London, Routledge, 2017). Collected essays of political science, journalism and sociology on the effects of Mexico’s militarized drug war. |
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The Mexican Press and Civil Society, 1940–1976: Stories from the Newsroom, Stories from the Street (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2018). The story of the explosion of Mexico’s newspaper industry, the state that tried to censor it, and the journalists and readers that refused to be muzzled. Winner of the LASA Howard Cline Award |
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(with Paul Gillingham and Michael Lettieri) Journalism, Satire, and Censorship in Mexico, (Alburquerque: UNM Press, 2018). A collection of essays on the twentieth century Mexican censorship and journalism. |
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The Dope: The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade (London/New York: Ebury/Norton, 2021). A myth-busting, 100-year history of the Mexican drug trade which how a once-peaceful industry became a violent behemoth Nominated for Edgar True Crime Award |
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(with Will Pansters) Histories of Drug Trafficking in Twentieth Century Mexico (UNM Press, 2022). A collection of essays on the history of the drug trade and the war on drugs in Mexico. |
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La Droga: La Verdadera Historia del Narcotráfico en México (Penguin Random House, 2022). Spanish translation of The Dope. |
Academic Articles
2024
"El estado, las drogas y la violencia en México, 1970-1982" in Ariel Rodríguez Kuri, Violencias mexicanas, 1920-2020. Once estudios (Colegio de México, 2024)
(with Tom Long), "State, crime and violence in Mexico, 1920–2000: Arbiters of impunity, agents of coercion," Past and Present
2023
(with Alexander Aviña) Mexico's Dirty War: A Reassessment, Bulletin of Latin American Research,
2022
Benjamin T. Smith and Juan Fernández Velázquez, A History of Opium Commodity Chains in Mexico, 1900–1950, Journal of Illicit Economies and Development, 2022, Volume: 4 Issue: 2, 113–127
2020
Benjamin T. Smith and Wil G. Pansters, "U.S. Moral Panics, Mexican Politics, and the Borderlands Origins of the War on Drugs 1950-1962", Journal of Contemporary History 55.2 (2020), pp. 364-87.
Benjamin T. Smith, "Killing a Cabby: The Press, Civil Society, and Justice in 1950s Chihuahua", Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, (2020) 36 (1-2): 127–149.
Benjamin T. Smith, "Introduction", Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos (2020) 36 (1-2): 1–9.
Benjamin T. Smith, "Communal Work, Forced Labor, and Road Building in Mexico, 1920-1958", in David Nugent and Ben Fallaw, State Formation in the Liberal Era: Capitalisms and Claims of Citizenship in Mexico and Peru, (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2020), pp. 273-298
2019
Romain Le Cour Grandmaison, Nathaniel Morris , Benjamin T. Smith, "The Last Harvest? From the US Fentanyl Boom to the Mexican Opium Crisis" Journal of Illicit Economies and Development (2019)
Benjamin T. Smith, "Of Saints and Demons: The Santa Muerte in Historical Perspective" in Wil G. Pansters (ed.), La Santa Muerte in Mexico History, Devotion, and Society (Albuquerque: UNM Press, 2019)
Benjamin T. Smith,"The Dialectics of Dope: Leopoldo Salazar Viniegra, the Myth of Marijuana, and Mexico’s State Drug Monopoly" in Susannah Wilson (ed.), Prohibitions and Psychoactive Substances in History, Culture and Theory: Prohibitions and Psychoactive Substances (London: Taylor & Francis, 2019)
Benjamin T. Smith "Prefacio" in Juan Antonio Fernández Velázquez and Pedro Cazares Aboytes (coords), Actores, Prácticas y Discursos en la Construcción del Estado Mexicano: Siglo XIX y XX (Isumismo Latinoamericanos, 2019), pp. 9-14.
Benjamin T. Smith, "The Paradoxes of the Public Sphere: Journalism, Gender, and Corruption in Mexico, 1940-1970," Journal of Social History Volume 52, Issue 4, Summer 2019, pp. 1330–1354
2018
Benjamin T. Smith, "The Year Mexico Stopped Laughing: The Crowd, Satire, and Censorship in Mexico City" in Paul Gillingham, Michael Lettieri, Benjamin T. Smith, (eds.), Journalism, Satire, and Censorship in Modern Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2018)
Paul Gillingham, Michael Lettieri, Benjamin T. Smith, "Introduction: Journalism, Satire and Censorship in Mexico" in Paul Gillingham, Michael Lettieri, Benjamin T. Smith, (eds.), Journalism, Satire, and Censorship in Modern Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2018)
2017
Wil Pansters, Benjamin T. Smith, Peter Watt, "Introduction: Beyond the Drug War in Mexico" in WIl Pansters, Benjamin T. Smith, Peter Watt, (eds.) Beyond the Drug War in Mexico: Human rights, the public sphere and justice (London, Routledge, forthcoming 2017)
Benjamin T. Smith, “El espíritu de Dios… en los corazones de todos”: La resurgimiento de Catolicismo en la Mixteca Baja, 1867-1910" in Marta Eugenia Ugarte García and Matthew Butler, Pablo Serrano Alvarez (eds), México católico. Proyectos y trayectorias eclesiales, siglos XIX y XX (Pachuca: Collegio de Hidalgo, 2017), 201-35.
2016
Benjamin T. Smith, "Drug Policies in Mexico, 1900-1980", Beatriz C.Labate, Clancy Cavnar, & Thiago Rodrigues, (eds.), Drug Policies and the Politics of Drugs in Latin America. (Cham: Switzerland, Springer International Publishing, 2016), pp. 33-53.
2014
Benjamin T. Smith, "Building a state on the cheap: Taxation, Social Movements, and Politics" in Benjamin T. Smith and Paul Gillingham (eds.), Dictablanda: Politics, Work, and Culture in Mexico, 1938-1968 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014)
Benjamin T. Smith and Paul Gillingham, "Introduction: The Paradoxes of Revolution" in in Benjamin T. Smith and Paul Gillingham (eds.), Dictablanda: Politics, Work, and Culture in Mexico, 1938-1968 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014)
Benjamin T. Smith, "Who Governed? Grassroots Politics in 1960s Mexico", Past & Present, (November 2014)
Benjamin T. Smith, "Rumbo a una cartografia de Cardenismo" in Tanalis Padilla (ed.), El campesinado y su persistencia en la actualidad mexicana (Mexico City: Conaculta, 2014)
2013
Benjamin T. Smith, “Rewriting the Moral Economy: Agricultural Societies and Economic Change in Oaxaca’s Mixteca Baja, 1830-1910 “ in Matthew Butler and Antonio Escobar Ohmstede, (eds), Mexico in Transition: New Perspectives on Mexican Agrarian History, Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries/ México y sus transiciones: reconsideraciones sobre la historia agraria mexicana, siglos XIX y XX, (University of Texas-CIESAS, 2013)
Benjamin T. Smith,"The Rise and Fall of Narcopopulism in Sinaloa, 1940-1980", Journal for the Study of Radicalism (Fall 2013), pp. 125-167.
Benjamin T. Smith and Gabriela Soto Laveaga, (eds,), Special issue of Endeavour on Medicine in Mexico (March 2013)
Benjamin T. Smith, “Towards a typology of popular responses to rural medicine in Mexico”, Endeavour, (March 2013)
2012
Benjamin T. Smith, “Heliodoro Charis Castro and the soldiers of Juchitán: Indigenous Militarism, Local Rule and the Mexican State” in Ben Fallaw and Terry Rugeley (eds.), Forced Marches: Soldiers and military caciques in modern Mexico (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2012)
2010
Benjamin T. Smith, “El Señor del Perdón y los matacristos de Oaxaca: La Revolución desde el punto de vista de los católicos”, Desacatos, 28, (2010), pp. 61-76.
Benjamin T. Smith and Keith Aaron Van Oosterhout, “The Limits of Catholic Science and the Mexican Revolution”, Endeavour, 34.2 (2010), pp. 55-60.
2009
Benjamin T. Smith, “Anticlericalism, Politics, and Freemasonry in Mexico, 1920–1940” The Americas, 65.4 (2009), pp. 559-588.
2008
Benjamin T. Smith, “Inventing Tradition at Gunpoint: Caciquismo and Culture in the Región Mixe, Oaxaca, 1930- 1959”, Bulletin of Latin American Research, 27.2 (2008), pp. 215-234
Benjamin T. Smith, “”The Party of the Priest”: Local Religion in Huajuapam de León, 1920-1952” in Matthew Butler (ed.), Faith and Impiety in Revolutionary Mexico: God’s Revolution? (London: Palgrave, 2008), pp. 261-278.
2007
Benjamin T. Smith, “Defending “Our Beautiful Freedom”: State Formation and Local Autonomy in Oaxaca, 1930- 1940”, Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, 37.1 (2007), pp. 125-53
2005
Benjamin T. Smith, “The Politics of Anticlericalism and Resistance: The Diocese of Huajuapam 1900-1940”, Journal of Latin American Studies, 37.3 (2005), pp. 469-505
2004
Benjamin T. Smith, “New lines of inquiry into the post-revolutionary state in Oaxaca (1934-1947)” in Carlos Sanchez Silva (ed.), Historia, sociedad y literatura de Oaxaca. Nuevos enfoques, (Mexico, IIHUABJO-IEEPO, 2004), pp. 67-98.
Benjamin T. Smith, “El suicidio de un diputado: La inestablidad del régimen pos-revolucionario”, Agenda Política, Periodismo de Investigación y Análisis, 1.2 (2004), pp. 3-9.
Policy Papers
Romain Le Cour Grandmaison, Nathanial Morris, and Benjamin T. Smith,No More Opium for the Masses. From the U.S. Fentanyl Boom to the Mexican Opium Crisis: Opportunities Amidst Violence? From the U.S. Fentanyl Boom to the Mexican Opium Crisis: Opportunities Amidst Violence? Noria Research, Mexico Institute, Justice for Mexico Center, February 2018
Interviews
Aline Maria de Carvalho Pagotto, Interview with Benjamin T. Smith, in Historia e Cultura
Press/articles/interviews
Es Extraño que si Hubo traición no hubo venganza,Link opens in a new window El Diario de Juárez, 29 July 2024
El Mayo: Los Entresijos,Link opens in a new window Reforma, 28 July 2024
Mexican Elections,Link opens in a new window France24, 31 March 2024
Cartels as Protection Rackets,Link opens in a new window Crashout Media, 26 February 2024
The Learning Curve Podcast, Link opens in a new window21 February 2024
Historiadores ingleses documentan la masacre del Monte de Chila; vamos a contar la otra historia de la guerra sucia, La Jornada del Oriente, 31 Oct. 2023
(with Alex Aviña), “The Mexican Dirty War”,Link opens in a new window Guerrilla History Podcast
(with Alex Aviña), “A War to the Death”, NACLA, September 2023.
“How The US/Mexican Drug War Inflamed The Violence & Increased Profits”, Letter & Politics, KPFA Radio, Jan. 2023
Juan Velediaz, El “viaje” del narco en México, Soll de México, Jan 2023
‘En los últimos diez años las adicciones se han convertido en un problema serio en México’: Benjamin T. Smith, Aristegui Noticias, Nov. 2022
Benjamin Smith: "México no está tomando en serio el problema de las drogas", Expansion Politica, Nov 2022
El narcotráfico es la historia de un asunto económico: Benjamin T. Smith, El Economista, Nov 2022
Paperback Row, NYTRB, 6 August 2022
Rafael Caro Quintero: The Narco Rorschach Test, El Acarreo, 25 July 2022
The Cartel Heroin Queenpin Who Ran Juarez for 50 Years with Benjamin Smith, The Underground Podcast, June 2022
“On the Dope and Doing Latin American History in the UK”, Scottish Center for Global History, May 2022
“Five Myths that Narco Propagates about the drug war” Interview with Jules Evans, 16 April 2022
Ricardo López Cordero, “Benjamin T. Smith sobre la historia del narcotráfico en México, Oaxaca y el humor inglés”, 6 February 2022
Chris White, Connected by Controversy podcast, 4 February 2022
Will Pinfold, The Dope: Review, Spectrum, 10 November 2021,
Free Thoughts Podcast, The Drug War in Mexico with Benjamin Smith, 5 November 2021
Ann Deslandes, How Mexico’s Drug Trade became so Violent, Foreign Policy, 3 November 2021
Majority Report, Decades-Old Myths Of The “War On Drugs”, And How They Shape Our Perception Of Mexico w/ Benjamin T. Smith, 26 October 2021
Benjamin Fogel, The Official Narrative About Mexico’s Drug War Is All Wrong, Jacobin, 15 October 2021
Jeremy Kuzmarov, Mexican President AMLO Pleads with Biden to End Failed Trillion Dollar “War on Drugs”—But Powerful U.S. Interests Prefer Deadly Status Quo, Covert Action Magazine, 11 October 2021
Carlos Matienzo, Estado y narcotráfico: vidas cruzadas, Letras Libres, 11 October 2021
Eduardo Guerrero Gutiérrez, ¿Vamos hacia una nueva ‘pax narca’?, El FInanciero, 6 September 2021
“Why it's Impossible to Win the War on Drugs” Interview with the wonderful Amichai Levy (my words, not his; follow his youtube channel), 2 September 2021
Nathaniel Parish Flannery, Can President Lopez Obrador End Mexico’s Drug War?, Forbes, 1 September 2021
New Documents Reveal the Bloody Origins of America's Long War on Drugs, Time Magazine, 24 August 2021
The phony war on drugs, New York Times Book Review, 15 Aug. 2021
New Books Network Interview, 6 August 2021
El Narco en México se creo en un mes, Entrevista con Luis Chaparro, 20 July 2021
Lanzamiento de The Dope, Facebook Live event, 29 June 2021
Interview with Katie Jones, Insight Crime, 21 June 2021
Kirkus Review of The Dope, June 2021
Publishers Weekly of The Dope, June 2021
WIth Bob Mills on TalkRadio, 14 June 2021 (10.10 onwards)
Review of The Dope in the FInancial Times, 10 June 2021
With Bill Padley on TalkRadio Europe, On The Dope, 9 June 2021
With Mark Dolan on TalkRadio on the Mexican Drug Trade, On The Dope, 7 June 2021
The mysterious death of Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, Link opens in a new windowThe Independent, 3 June 2021. Long read
“Existe la idea de que antes, el PRI controlaba todo y no existía la violencia, pero esto no es verdad” El Pais Interview, 26 May 2021
Benjamín Smith presentó su libro “The Dope. The Real History of Mexican Drug Trade”, Radio Formula, 27 May 2021
Why we should remember Nixon’s War on Drugs, BBC History, May 2021
(With Romain Le Cour Grandmaison and Nathaniel Morris) La crisis de la amapola: cuando la droga ya no es rentable (II/II), Nexos, 5/2019
(With Romain Le Cour Grandmaison and Nathaniel Morris) La crisis de la amapola: la ultima cosecha? Nexos, 4/2019
Fake News, Chinese Boxes, and the Mexican Art of Manipulating the Press, UNC Press Blog, 11/2018
Por Qué, Por Qué? UNC Press Blog, 11/2018
El año en el que México legalizó (brevemente) las drogas, Animal Político, 4/2018
The Year Mexico legalized Drugs, BBC History Extra, 6/2016
Como manipular a la Prensa? Nexos, 5/2017
Violencia del estado, reforma educativa e izquierda, Letras Libres, 9/2016
What does Chapo’s Escape Mean for the Mexican Drug Trade, Dissent, 7/2016
Mexico on the Brink, Dissent, 12/2014
The end of the drug war or a new cartel of cartels, Dissent, 11/2014
Arresting Mexican kingpin El Chapo hardly means the War on Drugs is over, Guardian, 2/2014
Teachers, education reform and the Mexican left, Dissent, 10/2013
Respuesta a “¿Qué quiere la Sección 22 del SNTE-CNTE?” Nexos, 9/2013