Ciudad Juarez lies just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas. A once-thriving border town, it now resembles a failed state. Infamously known as the place where women disappear, its murder rate exceeds that of Baghdad. Last year 1,607 people were killed, a number that is on pace to increase in 2009. In Murder City, Charles Bowden, one of the few journalists who has spent extended periods of time in Juarez, has written an extraordinary account of what happens when a city disintegrates. Interweaving stories of its inhabitants, a raped beauty queen, a repentant hitman, a journalist fleeing for his life with a broader meditation on the town's descent into anarchy, Bowden reveals how Juarez's culture of violence will not only worsen, but inevitably spread north.
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Publisher:
New York : Nation Books, c2010.
ISBN:
9781568584492
1568584490
1568584490
Characteristics:
xiv, 320 p., [16] p. of plates :,ill. ;,25 cm.
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Add a CommentFYI the Download Adobe PDF option doesn't actually work so don't choose it, the file ends up downloading with a ".acsm" extension which is unreadable.
Possibly the most depressing book of 2008, or ever. Both SPM and sit_walk are right. Murder City is a series of stapled together articles, whose doom-laden, Hunter S. Thompson-influenced style is, for once, justified. No need to look as far as globalization for blame; look at what greases the economic wheels in Vancouver, BC. As a cop at Main and Hastings once said, "it's all about containment."
Gripping, disturbing, and occasionally profound writing. If you're interested in the future of globalization (generally) and NAFTA (specifically), this is essential reading.
Charles Bowden describes the horrific violence in Juarez which topped 200 murders a month in 2009. The sheer scale makes this surreal as does the quality and style of Bowden's writing.
This book covers the important and tragic situation in Ciudad Juarez, The author could have done a lot better. I found his style scattered, disjointed and like a bunch of newspaper articles stapled together.