In "Working Women into the Borderlands," author Sonia Hernandez sheds light on how women's labor was shaped by US capital in the northeast region of Mexico and how women's labor activism simultaneously shaped the nature of foreign investment and relations between Mexicans and Americans. As capital investments fueled the growth of heavy industries in cities and ports such as Monterrey and Tampico, women's work complemented and strengthened their male counterparts' labor in industries which were historically male-dominated.
As Hernandez reveals, women laborers were expected to maintain...

In "Working Women into the Borderlands," author Sonia Hernandez sheds light on how women's labor was shaped by US capital in the northeast region of Mexico and how women's labor activism simultaneously shaped the nature of foreign investment and relations between Mexicans and Americans. As capital investments fueled the growth of heavy industries in cities and ports such as Monterrey and Tampico, women's work complemented and strengthened their male counterparts' labor in industries which were historically male-dominated.
As Hernandez reveals, women laborers were expected to maintain...

The commercial world of South Texas between 1880 and 1940 provided an attractive environment for many seeking to start new businesses, especially businesses that linked the markets and finances of the United States and Mexico. Entrepreneurs regularly crossed the physical border in pursuit of business. But more important, more complex, and less well-known were the linguistic, cultural, and ethnic borders they navigated daily as they interacted with customers, creditors, business partners, and employees. Drawing on her expertise as a bankruptcy lawyer, historian Alicia M. Dewey tells the story...

"Power and Control in the Imperial Valley" examines the evolution of irrigated farming in the Imperial-Mexicali Valley, an arid desert straddling the California Baja California border. Bisected by the international boundary line, the valley drew American investors determined to harness the nearby Colorado River to irrigate a million acres on both sides of the border. The conquest of the environment was a central theme in the history of the valley.
Colonization in the valley began with the construction of a sixty-mile aqueduct from the Colorado River in California through Mexico....

This collection of eleven original essays goes beyond traditional, border-driven studies to place the histories of Native Americans, indigenous peoples, and First Nation peoples in a larger context than merely that of the dominant nation.
AsTransnational Indians in the North American West shows, transnationalism can be expressed in various ways. To some it can be based on dependency, so that the history of the indigenous people of the American Southwest can only be understood in the larger context of Mexico and Central America. Others focus on the importance of movement between...

Blood Oranges traces the origins and legacy of racial differences between Anglo Americans and ethnic Mexicans (Mexican nationals and Mexican Americans) in the South Texas borderlands in the twentieth century. Author Tim Bowman uncovers a complex web of historical circumstances that caused ethnic Mexicans in the region to rank among the poorest, least educated, and unhealthiest demographic in the country. The key to this development, Bowman finds, was a modern colonization movement, a process that had its roots in the Mexican-American war of the nineteenth century but reached its...

The near disappearance of the American bison in the nineteenth century is commonly understood to be the result of over-hunting, capitalist greed, and all but genocidal military policy. This interpretation remains seductive because of its simplicity; there are villains and victims in this familiar cautionary tale of the American frontier. But as this volume of groundbreaking scholarship shows, the story of the bison s demise is actually quite nuanced.
Bison and People on the North American Great Plains brings together voices from several disciplines to offer new insights on the...

Uses agricultural history to connect the regional experiences of the American West, northern Mexico, western Canada, and the North American side of the Pacific Rim. Case studies of commodity production and distribution, trans-border agricultural labour, and environmental change unite to reveal new perspectives on a historiography traditionally limited to a regional approach.

Barbed wire is made of two strands of galvanized steel wire twisted together for strength and to hold sharp barbs in place. As creative advertisers sought ways to make an inherently dangerous product attractive to customers concerned about the welfare of their livestock, and as barbed wire became commonplace on battlefields and in concentration camps, the fence accrued a fascinating and troubling range of meanings beyond the material facts of its construction.

In The Perfect Fence, Lyn Ellen Bennett and Scott Abbott explore the multiple uses and meanings of barbed wire, a...