Kliph Nesteroff is author of “The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels and the History of American Comedy” published by Grove Press. Then we talk with Bernardo Ruiz the director of “Kingdom of Shadows.”

In The Comedians, comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff brings to life a century of American comedy with real-life characters, forgotten stars, mainstream heroes and counterculture iconoclasts. Based on over two hundred original interviews and extensive archival research, Nesteroff’s groundbreaking work is a narrative exploration of the way comedians have reflected, shaped, and changed American culture over the past one hundred years.

Bernardo Ruiz’s compelling investigation into the human costs of the Mexican drug war, on both sides of the border, reveals the links between the lives and experiences of an activist nun in northern Mexico, a rancher in Texas who used to smuggle marijuana and a US drug enforcement agent on the border. A raw history of the violence affecting countless lives, Kingdom of Shadows sheds critical light on a growing human rights crisis.

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