Overview

"Why Walls Won't Work is a sweeping account of life along the United States-Mexico border zone, tracing the border's history of cultural interaction since the earliest Mesoamerican times to the present day. As soon as Mexicans, American settlers, and indigenous peoples came into contact along the Rio Grande in the mid-nineteenth century, new forms of interaction and affiliation evolved. By the late-twentieth century, the border states were among the fastest-growing regions in both countries. But as Michael Dear warns, this vibrant zone of economic, cultural and social connectivity is today threatened by highly restrictive American immigration and security policies as well as violence along the border. The U.S. border-industrial complex and the emerging Mexican narco-state are undermining the very existence of the ""third nation"" occupying the space between Mexico and the U.S. Through a series of evocative portraits of contemporary border communities, Dear reveals how the promise and potential of this ""in-between"" nation still endures and is worth protecting. Now with a new chapter updating this story and suggesting what should be done about the challenges confronting the cross-border zone, Why Walls Won't Work represents a major intellectual intervention into one of the most hotly-contested political issues of our era."

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9780190235253

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Reviews

A fascinating and indispensable book for everyone living in North America. Michael Dear deploys a rigorous social science mixed with the fresh eye of an explorer to guide us through the 'third nation' that has sprung up between Mexico and the US. Sergio Aguayo, El Colegio de Mexico In this lucid, concise, engaging, graceful, and constructive volume, Michael Dear draws on insights from across the social sciences and humanities to map the emergence and significance of a 'third nation,' formed from the juxtaposition, interconnection, and exchange between Mexico and the United States on both sides of their increasingly blurred political border. Dear argues convincingly and eloquently that the physical barrier being constructed along the US-Mexico frontier is an unprecedented and damaging historical aberration that will eventually be overwhelmed by the strong, positive human connections between the United States and Mexico. Abraham F. Lowenthal, Professor Emeritus, University of Southern California A comprehensive history of the multiple tensions and processes related to the creation and strengthening of the demarcation at the U.S.-Mexican border, based on a transnational and transdisciplinary perspective that recovers the multiplicity of visions and challenges on both sides of the border. The most novel aspect of Dear's approach is the complex and optimistic emphasis placed on the social and cultural practices of border people, which show connectivity, continuity, and the possibility of thinking about a region without walls. This is a challenge not only to the notion of border and nation, but also a powerful counterargument to the discourses of fear that permeate perceptions of one of the world's most sensitive geopolitical edges. Norma V. Iglesias-Prieto, Professor and Chair, Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies, San Diego State University This is an important, elegantly written volume that reflects the very hybridity it seeks to portray: it flips between Mexican origins and U.S. politics, between cultural studies and hard social science, between the personal and the analytical with a playful skill and ease that captures the very spirit of the borderlands. Dear reveals the creation of a new border culture in which blended identities and daily transnational and transcultural interactions are emerging even as the walls between our two countries continue to rise. Manuel Pastor, Professor of Sociology and American Studies and Ethnicity, University of Southern California Why Walls Won't Work is an excellent book that offers valuable insight into the forces that fracture the borderlands, or the third nation. Dear's contribution is important and a regional survey of the borderlands. His critiques of the Border Industrial Complex in the United States and the drug wars in Mexico are especially good. Journal of Regional Science

Why Walls Won't Work is an excellent book that offers valuable insight into the forces that fracture the borderlands, or the third nation. Dear's contribution is important and a regional survey of the borderlands. His critiques of the Border Industrial Complex in the United States and the drug wars in Mexico are especially good. * Journal of Regional Science * This is an important, elegantly written volume that reflects the very hybridity it seeks to portray: it flips between Mexican origins and U.S. politics, between cultural studies and hard social science, between the personal and the analytical with a playful skill and ease that captures the very spirit of the borderlands. Dear reveals the creation of a new border culture in which blended identities and daily transnational and transcultural interactions are emerging even as the walls between our two countries continue to rise. * Manuel Pastor, Professor of Sociology and American Studies and Ethnicity, University of Southern California * A comprehensive history of the multiple tensions and processes related to the creation and strengthening of the demarcation at the U.S.-Mexican border, based on a transnational and transdisciplinary perspective that recovers the multiplicity of visions and challenges on both sides of the border. The most novel aspect of Dear's approach is the complex and optimistic emphasis placed on the social and cultural practices of border people, which show connectivity, continuity, and the possibility of thinking about a region without walls. This is a challenge not only to the notion of border and nation, but also a powerful counterargument to the discourses of fear that permeate perceptions of one of the world's most sensitive geopolitical edges. * Norma V. Iglesias-Prieto, Professor and Chair, Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies, San Diego State University * In this lucid, concise, engaging, graceful, and constructive volume, Michael Dear draws on insights from across the social sciences and humanities to map the emergence and significance of a 'third nation,' formed from the juxtaposition, interconnection, and exchange between Mexico and the United States on both sides of their increasingly blurred political border. Dear argues convincingly and eloquently that the physical barrier being constructed along the US-Mexico frontier is an unprecedented and damaging historical aberration that will eventually be overwhelmed by the strong, positive human connections between the United States and Mexico. * Abraham F. Lowenthal, Professor Emeritus, University of Southern California * A fascinating and indispensable book for everyone living in North America. Michael Dear deploys a rigorous social science mixed with the fresh eye of an explorer to guide us through the 'third nation' that has sprung up between Mexico and the US. * Sergio Aguayo, El Colegio de Mexico *

Author Information

Michael Dear is Professor of City and Regional Planning in the College of Environmental Design at the University of California-Berkeley. The author/editor of more than a dozen books, he has been a Guggenheim Fellowship holder, a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, and Fellow at the Rockefeller Center in Bellagio, Italy. He has received the highest honors for creativity in research from the Association of American Geographers, and numerous undergraduate teaching and graduate mentorship awards.

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