Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw
by Mark Bowden
from Penguin (Non-Classics)
Readers of Black Hawk Down know Mark Bowden can tell an exciting story about as well as any writer at work today. Killing Pablo is further proof. It describes the rise and fall of Pablo Escobar, a notorious Colombian drug lord who became one of the narcotic trade's first billionaires. Pablo--Bowden refers to him by his first name throughout the book--started out as a petty thief and wound up running a massive smuggling empire. At his height in the 1980s, he owned fleets of boats and planes, plus 19 separate residences in Medellin, each with its own helipad. Violence marked everything he did: "He wasn't an entrepreneur, and he wasn't even an especially talented businessman. He was just ruthless." He bought off police, politicians, and judges throughout his country, and killed many others who wouldn't cooperate. The Colombian government tried to capture him, but without much luck; he evaded them time after time. "Now and then the police achieved enough surprise to catch him, literally, with his pants down. In [1988], about one thousand national police raided one of his mansions," writes Bowden. "Pablo fled in his underwear, avoiding the police cordon on foot." He got away, again, but his days were numbered. He was making powerful enemies in both Colombia and the United States. The final straw probably came when Pablo's men murdered a popular politician and, three months later, planted a bomb on a plane, killing 110 people, including two Americans.
The bulk of Killing Pablo describes what happened when the U.S. government put its resources behind the hunt for Pablo. Bowden describes the search in gripping detail, from the massive electronic-surveillance effort to bureaucratic infighting between rival U.S. agencies. This is an outstanding work of reportorial journalism, too: in the epilogue, Bowden drops tantalizing hints that it was an American--not a Colombian--who delivered the killing shot to Pablo in 1993. Readers looking for a real-life thriller--or any kind of thriller, for that matter--won't do much better than Killing Pablo.
A tour de force of investigative journalism-this is the story of the violent rise and fall of Pablo Escobar, the head of the Colombian Medellin cocaine cartel. Escobar's criminal empire held a nation of thirty million hostage in a reign of terror that would only end with his death. In an intense, up-close account, award-winning journalist Mark Bowden exposes details never before revealed about the U.S.-led covert sixteen-month manhunt. With unprecedented access to important players-including Colombian president César Gaviria and the incorruptible head of the special police unit that pursued Escobar, Colonel Hugo Martinez-as well as top-secret documents and transcripts of Escobar's intercepted phone conversations, Bowden has produced a gripping narrative that is a stark portrayal of rough justice in the real world.
"The story of how the U.S. Army Intelligence and Delta Force commandos helped Colombian police track down and kill Pablo Escobar is a compelling, almost Shakespearean tale." (Los Angeles Times)
"Absolutely riveting. . . . Mark Bowden has a way of making modern nonfiction read like the best of novels." (The Denver Post)
Until Death Do Us Part: My Struggle to Reclaim Colombia
by Ingrid Betancourt
from Ecco
Ingrid Betancourt, a senator and a presidential candidate in Colombia, grew up among diplomats, literati, and artists who congregated at her parents' elegant home in Paris, France. Her father served as Colombia's ambassador to UNESCO and her mother, a political activist, continued her work on behalf of the country's countless children whose lives were being destroyed by extreme poverty and institutional neglect. Intellectually, Ingrid was influenced by Pablo Neruda and other Latin American writers like Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez, who frequented her parents' social circle. She studied at École de Sciences Politiques de Paris, a prestigious academy in France.
From this charmed life, Ingrid Betancourt -- not yet thirty, happily married to a French diplomat, and a mother of two children -- returned to her native country in the late 1980s. On what was initially just a visit, she found her country under internal siege from the drug cartels and the corrupt government that had allowed them to flourish. After seeing what had become of Colombia's democracy, she didn't feel she could leave.
Until Death Do Us Part is the deeply personal story of a woman who gave up a life of comfort and safety to become a political leader in a country being slowly demolished by terrorism, violence, fear, and a pervasive sense of hopelessness. It is a country where democracy has been sacrificed for the well-being of the few, where international criminals determine policy, and where political assassinations are a way of life. Now forty, Ingrid Betancourt has been elected and reelected as a representative and as a senator in Colombia's national legislature. She has founded a political party that has openly confronted Colombia's leaders and has earned the respect of a nation. And now she has become a target of the establishment and the drug cartels behind it.
Forced to move her children out of Colombia for protection against death threats, Ingrid Betancourt remained and continued to fight the political structure that has crumbled under the destructive power of the paramilitary forces, the financial omnipotence of the drug cartels, and the passivity of governmentfor-sale. Here is a political cocktail that has destroyed countless lives in Colombia and has spread to countries beyond its borders.
A memoir of a life in politics that reads like a fastpaced political thriller, Until Death Do Us Part -- already an international bestseller -- is a hair-raising account of one woman's fight against the establishment. It is a story of a woman whose love for her country and faith in democracy gave her the courage to stand up to the power that has subjugated, intimidated, or corrupted all those who opposed it. A chilling account of the dangerous, byzantine machine that runs Colombia, it is also an inspiring story of privilege, sacrifice, and true patriotism.
Ingrid Betancourt, a senator and a presidential candidate in Colombia, grew up among diplomats, literati, and artists who congregated at her parents' elegant home in Paris, France. Intellectually, Ingrid was influenced by Pablo Neruda and other Latin American writers like Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez, who frequented her parents' social circle. From this charmed life, Ingrid Betancourt - not yet thirty, happily married to a French diplomat, and a mother of two children - returned to her native country in the late 1980s. On what was initially just a visit, she found her country under internal siege from the drug cartels and the corrupt government that had allowed them to flourish. After seeing what had become of Colombia's democracy, she didn't feel she could leave. Until Death Do Us Part is the deeply personal story of a woman who gave up a life of comfort and safety to become a political leader in a country being slowly demolished by terrorism, violence, fear, and a pervasive sense of hopelessness. Now forty, Ingrid Betancourt has been elected and reelected as a representative and as a senator in Colombia's national legislature. She has founded a political party that has openly confronted Colombia's leaders and has earned the respect of a nation. And now she has become a target of the establishment and the drug cartels behind it. Forced to move her children out of Colombia for protection against death threats, Ingrid Betancourt remained and continued to fight the political structure that has crumbled under the destructive power of the paramilitary forces, the financial omnipotence of the drug cartels, and the passivity of governmentfor-sale. A memoir of a life in politics that reads like a fastpaced political thriller, Until Death Do Us Part -- already an international bestseller -- is a hair-raising account of one woman's fight against the establishment.
LA Rabia En El Corazon
Drugs, Oil, and War: The United States in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Indochina
by Peter Dale Scott
from Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Peter Dale Scott's brilliantly researched tour de force illuminates the underlying forces that drive U.S. global policy from Vietnam to Colombia and now to Afghanistan and Iraq. He brings to light the intertwined patterns of drugs, oil politics, and intel
Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America
by Michael Taussig
from University of N. Carolina Press
Colombia and the United States : War, Unrest, and Destabilization (Open Media)
by Mario A. Murillo
from Seven Stories Press
Every year, the United States spends millions of dollars to help the war--ravaged country of Colombia. But help it with what? In Colombia & the United States, Mario A. Murillo and Jesus Avirama explores the devastating impact that misdirected U.S. military "aid"-under the banner of "the war on drugs"-continues to have on the people of Colombia. They argue that the conflict in Colombia is not about drugs, nor guerillas, nor "terrorism," but rather about the unwillingness of the country's elite to open up spaces for truly democratic development.
Mario Murillo is the author of Islands of Resistance: Puerto Rico, Vieques and U.S. Policy.
Jesus Avirama, a member of the indigenous Kokonuco people, is a longtime activist.
The Baroque World of Fernando Botero
by John Sillevis
from Yale University Press
Accompanying the artist’s first American retrospective in over thirty years, The Baroque World of Fernando Botero is the most extensive study of his life and work to date. Drawn exclusively from Botero’s private collection, the 100 works featured in this book, including previously unpublished paintings and drawings, represent the full scope of his oeuvre from a uniquely personal perspective. Many of these—portraits of friends and family members and remembered scenes—have remained in the artist’s possession since their creation, while others he has bought back over the years as markers of significant developments in his career. Three essays examine the artist’s creative life, from the aesthetic environment in which Botero developed his unique style to his catalyzing influence on the Colombian art world of the 1960s and 70s.
The Darkest Jungle: The True Story of the Darien Expedition and America's Ill-Fated Race to Connect the Seas
by Todd Balf
from Crown
“Commit yourself to the Virgin Mary, for in her hands is the way into the Darién—and in God’s is the way out.”
The Darkest Jungle tells the harrowing story of America’s first ship canal exploration across a narrow piece of land in Central America called the Darién, a place that loomed large in the minds of the world’s most courageous adventurers in the nineteenth century. With rival warships and explorers from England and France days behind, the 27-member U.S. Darién Exploring Expedition landed on the Atlantic shore at Caledonia Bay in eastern Panama to begin their mad dash up the coast-hugging mountains of the Darién wilderness. The whole world watched as this party attempted to be the first to traverse the 40-mile isthmus, the narrowest spot between the Atlantic and Pacific in all the Americas.
Later, government investigators would say they were doomed before they started. Amid the speculative fever for an Atlantic and Pacific ship canal, the terrain to be crossed had been grossly misrepresented and fictitiously mapped. By January 27, 1854, the Americans had served out their last provisions and were severely footsore but believed the river they had arrived at was an artery to the Pacific, their destination. Leading them was the charismatic commander Isaac Strain, an adventuring 33-year-old U.S. Navy lieutenant. The party could have turned back except, said Strain, they were to a man “revolted at the idea” of failing at a task they seemed destined to accomplish. Like the first men to try to scale Everest or reach the North Pole, they felt the eyes of their countrymen upon them.
Yet Strain’s party would wander lost in the jungle for another sixty nightmarish days, following a tortuously contorted and uncharted tropical river. Their guns rusted in the damp heat, expected settlements never materialized, and the lush terrain provided little to no sustenance. As the unending march dragged on, the party was beset by flesh-embedding parasites and a range of infectious tropical diseases they had no antidote for (or understanding of). In the desperate final days, in the throes of starvation, the survivors flirted with cannibalism and the sickest men had to be left behind so, as the journal keeper painfully recorded, the rest might have a chance to live.
The U.S. Darién Exploring Expedition’s 97-day ordeal of starvation, exhaustion, and madness—a tragedy turned “triumph of the soul” due to the courage and self-sacrifice of their leader and the seamen who devotedly followed him—is one of the great untold tales of human survival and exploration. Based on the vividly detailed log entries of Strain and his junior officers, other period sources, and Balf’s own treks in the Darién Gap, this is a rich and utterly compelling historical narrative that will thrill readers who enjoyed In the Heart of the Sea, Isaac’s Storm, and other sagas of adventure at the limits of human endurance.
Between Legitimacy and Violence: A History of Colombia, 1875-2002 (Latin America in Translation/En Traducción/Em Tradução)
by Marco Palacios
from Duke University Press
Between Legitimacy and Violence is an authoritative, sweeping history of Colombia’s “long twentieth century,” from the tumultuous civil wars of the late nineteenth century to the drug wars of the late twentieth. Marco Palacios, a leading Latin American historian, skillfully blends political, economic, social, and cultural history. In an expansive chronological narrative full of vivid detail, he explains Colombia’s political history, discussing key leaders, laws, parties, and ideologies; corruption and inefficiency; and the paradoxical nature of government institutions, which, while stable and enduring, are unable to prevent frequent and extreme outbursts of violence. Palacios traces the trajectory of the economy, addressing agriculture (particularly the economic significance of coffee), the development of a communication and transportation infrastructure, industrialization, and labor struggles. Palacios also gives extensive attention to persistent social inequalities, the role of the Catholic Church, demographic shifts such as urbanization and emigration, and Colombia’s relationship with the United States. Offering a comparative perspective, he frequently contrasts Colombia with other Latin American nations. Throughout, Palacios offers a helpful interpretive framework, connecting developments with their causes and consequences. By thoroughly illuminating Colombia’s past, Between Legitimacy and Violence sheds much-needed light on the country’s violent present.
Vine of the Soul: Medicine Men, Their Plants and Rituals in the Colombian Amazonia
by Richard Evans Schultes
from Synergetic Press
Imagine a world where healing with plants takes place daily, and where ritual and magic are as much a part of normal life as sitting down to a meal. This is the enchanting world that we are introduced to in VINE OF THE SOUL: MEDICINE MEN, THEIR PLANTS AND RITUALS IN THE COLOMBIAN AMAZONIA; it is a world which was threatened by extinction back in 1941 when the author, Dr. Richard Evans Schultes, first began his 14-year-long visit, and it is threatened even more today. In fact, its 1941 version could already be said to be extinct. Because of the importance (from anthropological, botanical, historical and humanistic points of view) of this title, Synergetic Press, which had published a first edition previously, produced the second edition, cited here, with the addition of front and back matter by three of the most attentive conservationists of our time. VINE OF THE SOUL features a preface by National Geographic Society Explorer-in-Residence Wade Davis, a foreword by former director of the Royal Botanical Gardens (at Kew, England) Sir Ghillean Prance, and an epilogue by Director of the Institute of Economic Botany (at the NY Botanical Gardens) Michael Balick. VINE OF THE SOUL is a collection of essays and photographs (more than 160) depicting life in the Amazon rainforest during the years that Schultes lived there. While Schultes, who proved to have a great eye for lighting, composition and subject matter, took the photos himself, the essays are co-authored by botanist extraordinaire Robert F. Raffauf. As plants are a priority for the indigenous peoples of the rainforest just as they are for Schultes and Raffauf plants and the people who use them (particularly medicine men, or payés) constitute much of the subject matter. Schultes learned a great deal from his indigenous mentors; he collected more than 20,000 specimens, discovered some 300 species new to science, and chronicled more than 2000 medicinal plants which are in use (many of them saving lives) in the pharmaceutical world today. But he also learned something more. For the indigenous people, plants are not only for healing but also and perhaps more importantly for leaving behind the ordinary world and connecting to the spiritual world. Vine of the Soul, in fact, is a translation for Ayahuasaca, the preferred sacred plant for most payés and the one most likely to link them to their mystical past. When a payé returns from this kind of excursion, he brings back with him information that is useful for his tribe: everything from plant prescriptions to information on births and deaths to choice building sites, to messages from ancestors. And while the payé is generally the only one to enter the supernatural world at this level, trancelike states induced with less potent plants provide more ordinary folk with spiritual access as well. In addition to their spellbinding relationship with plants, we learn about the myths, arts, dances, festivals, jewelry, clothing and social habits of the many tribes that Schultes (who had learned seven indigenous languages by the time he left) encountered. The book, which is a companion title to WHERE THE GODS REIGN is destined to be remain the most consequential work on this subject matter.
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