Amexica: War Along the Borderline (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), by Ed Vulliamy

British journalist Ed Vulliamy writes beautifully about the horror along the Mexican side of the border. The murderous sprees by rival drug cartels flash across the U.S. media from time to time, but receive little perspective. Vulliamy has lived on the border for years and pegs the conflict as postmodern war without ideology, as terrorism whose rationale is difficult to discern. The United States has played its role, not only as a major drug market and supplier of arms, but also for the maquiladoras (cheap labor factories) that resulted in vast urban slums lacking social cohesion. The evidence of a society in decomposition is as easy to find as the criminal perpetrators. The cartels have grown into caricatures of transnational corporations, maximizing profit and outsourcing work to street gangs imbued with a culture of death. (David Luhrssen)