Home Dark Alliance: Movie Tie-In Edition: The Cia, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion by Gary Webb; Foreword by Maxine Waters (ISBN: 9781609806217)

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Dark Alliance: Movie Tie-In Edition: The Cia, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion Paperback - 2014

Name: Dark Alliance: Movie Tie-In Edition: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion
Price: 67.25 USD
Availability: InStock
Author: Webb, Gary
ISBN: 9781609806217

by Gary Webb; Foreword by Maxine Waters

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From the publisher

In 1996, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist GARY WEBB (1955–2004) wrote a shocking series of articles for the San Jose Mercury News exposing the CIA’s link to Nicaraguan cocaine smuggled into the US by the Contras, which had fueled the widespread crack epidemic that swept through urban areas. Webb’s bold, controversial reporting was the target of a famously vicious media backlash that ended his career as a mainstream journalist. When Webb persisted with his research and compiled his findings in the bookDark Alliance, some of the same publications that had vilified Webb for his series retracted their criticism and praised him for having the courage to tell the truth about one of the worst official abuses in our nation’s history. Others, including his own former newspaper and the New York Times, continued to treat him like an outlaw for the brilliant and courageous work he’d done. Webb’s death on December 10, 2004, at the age of 49, was determined to be a suicide.

Details

Title Dark Alliance: Movie Tie-In Edition: The Cia, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion
Author Gary Webb; Foreword by Maxine Waters
Binding Paperback
Edition Reprint
Pages 592
Volumes 1
Language ENG
Publisher Seven Stories Press
Date 2014-09-02
Illustrated Yes
ISBN 9781609806217 / 1609806212
Weight 1.31 lbs (0.59 kg)
Dimensions 8.17 x 5.5 x 1.58 in (20.75 x 13.97 x 4.01 cm)
Library of Congress subjects United States, Counterrevolutionaries - Nicaragua
Library of Congress Catalog Number 2014497277
Dewey Decimal Code 363.450

Media reviews

"…a densely researched, passionately argued, acronym-laden 548-page volume." —Michael Massing, The Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review

"I find his argument to be very well documented, very careful and very convincing. In fact, the readability of the book suffers a bit from what seems to have been a fear that if he didn't include absolutely every bit of evidence he had unearthed, he would open himself up to new criticisms of inadequate reporting—but this editor's quibble shouldn't stop anyone from buying and reading Dark Alliance. Long-time followers of the contra tale are likely to find new revelations in the book…" —Jo Ann Kawell, The Nation

About the author

An award-winning investigative reporter, GARY WEBB (1955-2004) is best known for his "Dark Alliance" series that linked a Northern California drug ring with the CIA and the United States' burgeoning crack epidemic. When the story first appeared in 1996 on the website of the San Jose Mercury News, it became an unprecedented internet sensation, receiving up to 1.3 million hits daily. The report was the target of a famously vicious media backlash that ended his career as a mainstream journalist. When Webb told the whole story in the book Dark Alliance, some of the same publications that had vilified him retracted their criticism and praised his courage in telling the truth about one of the worst official abuses in our nation's history. Others, including his own former newspaper and the New York Times, continued to treat him as an outlaw. Before joining the Mercury News, Webb cut his journalism teeth at the Kentucky Post and Cleveland Plain Dealer. He is the co-recipient of an Investigative Reporters and Editors Award (for a story at the Post about links between the Kentucky coal mining industry and organized crime) and a Pulitzer Prize (as part of a team at the Mercury News covering the 1988 San Francisco Earthquake). Dark Alliance won the 1998 Firecracker Alternative Book Award in the Politics category, and was a finalist for the PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award. In 2014 Webb's story was adapted into the major motion picture Kill the Messenger. His death in 2004 was ruled a suicide.