From the Bookshelves: Mañana Forever?: Mexico and the Mexicans by Jorge Castañeda and Murder City: Ciudad Juárez and the Global Economy's New Killing Fields by Charles Bowden

Mañana Forever?: Mexico and the Mexicans. by Jorge Castañeda. Why are Mexicans so successful in individual sports, but deficient in team play? Why do Mexicans dislike living in skyscrapers? Why do Mexicans love to see themselves as victims, but also love victims? And why, though the Mexican people traditionally avoid conflict, is there so much violence in a country where many leaders have died by assassination? In this shrewd and fascinating book, the renowned scholar and former foreign minister Jorge Castañeda sheds much light on the puzzling paradoxes of his native country. Here’s a nation of 110 million that has an ambivalent and complicated relationship with the United States yet is host to more American expatriates than any country in the world. Its people tend to resent foreigners yet have made the nation a hugely popular tourist destination. Mexican individualism and individual ties to the land reflect a desire to conserve the past and slow the route to uncertain modernity. Castañeda examines the future possibilities for Mexico as it becomes more diverse in its regional identities, socially more homogenous, its character and culture the instruments of change rather than sources of stagnation, its political system more open and democratic. Mañana Forever? is a compelling portrait of a nation at a crossroads.

Murder City: Ciudad Juárez and the Global Economy's New Killing Fields by Charles Bowden. In "Murder City", award-winning writer Charles Bowden presents a devastating chronicle of a city in collapse. It begins in January 2008 when a handwritten list appears on a Juarez monument to fallen police officers. Under the heading 'those who did not believe' are the names of five recently murdered cops. And under the heading 'for those who continue not believing' are seventeen names. A few days later their bodies start to appear. But in Juarez, it is not just the police and drug cartel members who die; the violence infects every level of society. With hallucinatory prose and piercing detail, Bowden reveals the lives of its residents: Miss Sinaloa, a raped beauty queen whose spiraling madness reflects that of the town that has consumed her; Emilio, a reporter who made the mistake of writing the truth and must now flee north for his life; El Pastor, a born again Christian who runs an insane asylum in the desert; and, the chilling sicario, or hitman, who has dreamt of his own death while whispering the secrets of his trade. As Bowden interweaves these stories into a broader meditation on Juarez's descent into anarchy, he reveals a city made by two countries and two histories, and takes an axe to Mexican and U.S. government and media myths of the war on drugs. In Juarez the war is for drugs; the police and the military fight for their share of the profits; the press is restrained by the murder of reporters; and, the line between the government and the drug cartels has never existed. 'In this new way of life, no one is really in charge-and no one is safe', writes Bowden. 'The violence has crossed class lines. The violence is everywhere. It is like the dust in the air, part of life itself'. Heartbreaking, disturbing, and unforgettable, "Murder City" establishes Bowden as one of our leading visionaries working at the height of his powers.

Click here for a review of the two books in The ERconomist.

KJ