AHR Forum Essay
Borders and Borderlands

Frontiers, borders, and empires provoked bitter conflicts in the past; they continue to do so in the present. They have also produced contentious debates among historians, and they continue to do so. This AHR Forum Essay addresses these important issues by seeking to provoke a debate about the meaning of borders and borderlands. Jeffrey Adelman and Stephen Aron resurrect longstanding debates about European empires in North America and link them to recent arguments about the experience of indigenous and colonizing people in contested areas between colonial domains. In a thoughtful synthesis, they insist that we recognize the significance of power relations where empires met and the way those relations were altered as empires became nations. Equally important, Adelman and Aron suggest that this form of analysis can also be used to understand imperial rivalries and intercultural relations in other times and places. They invite responses to their argument from those who assess its implications for our understanding of the North American past as well as those who analyze its meanings for the histories of other areas and other times.
And so do we. This Forum is the second installment of a new format in which we solicit comments from readers rather than commission responses to be published along with the essay. We will select three or four of the most compelling and instructive responses and publish them along with a rejoinder from Adelman and Aron in the October 1999 issue. We ask those who would like to comment on the essay to send responses of 1,000–1,500 words to the American Historical Review, 914 Atwater Ave., Bloomington IN 47401. All comments should be double-spaced and clearly identify the author. And to be considered for publication, the responses must be received by August 30, 1999. We will, though, forward copies of all responses that we receive to the essay's authors. Questions about the Forum can sent to the same address or to our e-mail address: ahr@indiana.edu.

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