In a list of objectives and inquiries meant to guide and make profitable the European travel of two young Americans in 1788, Thomas Jefferson noted, -Architecture is] worth great attention. As we double our numbers ever 20 years we must double our houses.... It is then among the most important arts: and it is desireable to introduce taste into an art which shews so much.- Referring both to the large physical presence of architecture, as well as the ability of a structure to reveal its owner's character, Jefferson articulates the telling relationship in eighteenth-century Virginia between...

Border Fictions offers the first comparative analysis of multiethnic and transnational cultural representations about the United States' borders with Mexico and Canada. Blending textual analysis with theories of globalization and empire, Claudia Sadowski-Smith forges a new model of inter-American studies.

Border Fictions places into dialogue a variety of hemispheric perspectives from Chicana/o, Asian American, American Indian, Latin American, and Canadian studies. Each chapter examines fiction that ranges widely, from celebrated authors such as Carlos Fuentes, Leslie Marmon Silko,...