Reviews for Illicit Global Economy And State Power

The average rating for Illicit Global Economy And State Power based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-04-14 00:00:00 Carolyn Robinsky American Murder: Criminals, Crimes, and the Media by media scholar Mike Mayo is, as the title suggests, a rather comprehensive true-crime encyclopedia'but it's much more than that. What makes American Murder stand out in a massive field of true-crime literature is that its focus is on when, how, and why mass media'television, film, popular fiction, etc.'addresses the particular subjects of notorious crime in the United States, whether serial murder, organized crime, or crime that's harder to categorize. Mayo's basically thorough approach, while not at all exhaustive (it really couldn't be, in all honesty, as true crime in the United States [and abroad] remains a perennial subject of fictional treatment; personally, I would very much appreciate seeing, say, My Friend Dahmer, a book I enjoyed immensely, in a second edition of American Murder [if Mr. Mayo is listening to this review, at least]), provides an ostensibly unique focus; Mayo draws elaborate connections, and his knowledge of true-crime-based fictional narratives does seem more-or-less exhaustive. (For example, in his entry on Ed Gein, perhaps one of the most notorious serial killers of the mid-20th century, Mayo very clearly cites Robert Bloch's Psycho'as well as Alfred Hitchcock's film, Tobe Hooper's film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Thomas Harris' The Silence of the Lambs, as well as Jonathan Demme's film; likewise, Mayo connects the infamous Lufthansa Heist to Henry Hill and Martin Scorsese's GoodFellas. And basically the entirety of American Murder is like these quintessential examples of Mayo's approach.) What makes American Murder further compelling is that Mayo includes entries on writers of true crime such as Ann Rule and Jerry Bledsoe'and, like Rule and Bledsoe, Mayo's focus (and much of his sympathy) is decidedly on the victims of the many crimes detailed in his book. Perhaps Mayo's tone is sometimes arguably too casual or flippant for the subject matter, but for most of the gristlier or more serious crimes, Mayo's tone is equally'and appropriately'sober; moreover, Mayo is unafraid to note where he believes a miscarriage of justice has occurred, sending an innocent person to prison or to execution'as well as where someone got away with something they shouldn't've. Likewise, Mayo also is careful to note where a particular crime or criminal's exploits are too depressing, grotesque, obscure, or even mundane to warrant literary or cinematic treatment. As I said earlier in this review, there's really no way Mayo's approach could be entirely exhaustive, but Mayo does an admirable job of detailing most of the examples in which cinema or literature (whether fiction or nonfiction) has addressed "American Murder"; moreover, Mayo's extensive bibliography provides ample fact-checking for further reading, always a plus in these circumstances. As encyclopedias or reference works go, American Murder is incredibly readable; that the material is interesting and compelling as well is a nice bonus.

Review # 2 was written on 2007-07-30 00:00:00 Henryk Boczar The writing in this Murder-pedia is irritatingly glib. i.e. Ted Kaczynski's entry starts out, If Ted Kaczynski had just met the right girl and managed to get laid, we might have been spared the Unabomber. Um... ok. Also the book tries to be lurid but is actually not lurid enough-- it aspires to be the dead-tree equivalent of the trutv crime library, but lacks the latter's scope & depth. The entries in American Murder are all fairly short, and they suffer for the lack of detail. On the organized crime front, most modern American gangs (prison or otherwise) aren't covered. It's pretty Mafia-focused, with an eye to how criminals/crimes were made into movies and TV shows. True to the title I suppose but I didn't find the focus that interesting.