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Reviews
THE BORDERLANDS OF THE AMERICAN AND CANADIAN WESTS: ESSAYS ON REGIONAL HISTORY OF THE FORTY-NINTH PARALLEL
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edited by Sterling Evans
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| University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 2006. Photographs, maps, notes, index. 421 pages. $49.95 cloth. |
| The U.S.-Mexico border has spawned myriad forms of economic, social, cultural, and environmental conflict and collaboration. Concomitant with such diverse forms of strife and cooperation has come a towering stack of border literature, ranging from academic analyses to flowing narrative prose. In North America, the phrase "border lit" evokes images of a harsh desert landscape split by markers, fences, culture, and language. Even for those whose interests lay single-mindedly on the western United States, the plethora of commentary on the U.S.-Mexican border constitutes at minimum a persistent blinking light on their radar screen. It is enough to make one think that the North American continent has just one border. |
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It does not. And if you need proof, take some time out to read The Borderlands of the American and Canadian Wests. This is an edited volume of historical essays mostly written between 1999 and 2002, although some of the essays were written a decade prior and one even dates to 1955. As such, an initial thumb through the book seems to justify the editor's prefatory admission that "interdisciplinarity is inherently awkward to a degree" (p. xv). But do not be fooled by the label of "edited volume," for this book is far more than a contrived anaspora (as in the opposite of diaspora) of distantly related articles. Indeed, the book presents itself more as an anthology than an edited volume, for the editor has hand-picked twenty essays that, despite their topical diversity ranging from race and gender to health care and the environment, nonetheless manage to maintain a strongly consistent borderlands theme throughout the volume. Contrary to my expectations, in reading the book straight through I found that the transition from one essay to the next was never jarring, and in many cases the essays built on one another. The effect is a remarkably cohesive volume. Consequently, for those seeking to understand the "other" border region of North America, this book would serve well as an introduction — something that can rarely be said about an edited volume. |
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The book is divided into six parts. Part I, entitled "Defining the Region, Defining the Border," contains three essays that focus on what the border means to the people living near it. It is the most thematically broad section of the book and prepares readers for the more topic-specific chapters to come. The four essays of Part 2 focus on colonization, law (and the lack thereof), ranching, and gender. That is quite a diversity of topic matter, arguably making for the most eclectic section of the book — yet, again, each essay clearly belongs in the volume. Part 3 addresses how individuals and groups historically sought sanctuary on the other side of the "medicine line," with an emphasis on ethnicity and religion. The themes brought out in this section directly mirror many of those found in the border lit on the U.S.-Mexico border, particularly in terms of the development of a border culture. As one essay on transborder movement of the Métis notes, "By the late 1870s and early 1880s, the border had become more than a line on a map; it had become something of a state of mind with its own mythology" (p. 147). |
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Although each chapter of the book provides new perspectives and histories, Part 4 on "farming, industry, and labor interactions in the borderlands" is perhaps the most eye-opening. An essay on binder twine, for example, provides an insightful look at how a single commodity can shape social and economic relations not only in the border region but across the entire continent. Part 5 returns to the sanctuary theme of Part 3 but focuses on post-World War I history, including studies of "prohibition refugees," transboundary racists, Vietnam War dodgers and deserters, and the more recent phenomenon of "medical marijuana refugees." Part 6 contains three essays examining "Natural Resources, Conservation, and Environmental Issues in the Borderlands." I found myself a bit disappointed by the sparsity of coverage here, but I imagine that specialists in any of the other main sections of the book would have similar sentiments. |
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In sum, despite the book's topical diversity, the borderlands theme runs strong throughout — strong enough to classify it as a coherent introduction to the western half of the U.S.-Canada border. Moreover, the thematic bibliographies interspersed throughout this book make it a must-have for anyone involved in, preparing to, or thinking about conducting research on any aspect of the western half of the U.S.-Canada border. The principal editor commences each of the six parts of the book with a short introductory essay that concludes with a "for further reading" section. Each of these bibliographies is divided into subcategories; the introduction to Part I, for instance, contains about two hundred bibliographic entries covering six subcategories. Similar topical divisions are found in the bibliographies of the other introductory sections, the final result of which is an immensely valuable service to future historians of the region. |
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I had a number of particular concerns as I read through the book, but they related to the individual chapters and did not substantially detract from the general quality of the book. Overall, whether one calls it an edited volume or an anthology, this book is an extremely helpful contribution to the study of the North American West. If you are attempting to understand most any aspect of this broad theme, you are cheating yourself if you do not have it in hand. |
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| Charles C. Chester
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| Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts |
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