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.

Why Walls Won't Work: Repairing the US-Mexico Divide

Politics & Social Sciences

Dear, Michael

Social Sciences

Oxford University Press

History

Americas

State Apparatus: Structures and Language of Legitimacy (Routledge Revivals)

Clark, Gordon L.

Routledge

Border Witness: Reimagining the US-Mexico Borderlands through Film

What a century of border films teaches about the real and imagined worlds of the US-Mexico borderlands--and how this understanding helps build better relations across boundaries. &nbsp; Border Witness is an account of cultural collision and fusion between Mexico and the United States, as seen on the ground and in films from the past hundred years. Blending film studies with political and cultural geography, Michael Dear investigates the making of cross-border identity and community in the territories between two nations. &nbsp; Border Witness introduces a new "border film" genre just now entering its golden age. A geographer and activist, Dear adopts an accessible and engaged perspective, combining the stories told by these films with insights drawn from his own decades-long research and travel. From early silent films to virtual reality, and from revolution to the present global crisis, border films provide fresh evidence for real and imagined politics and for envisioning future transborder architectures carved from in-between spaces.&nbsp;In an era of global geopolitics that favors walls and war over diplomacy, Dear's insights have relevance for borders around the world.

Humor & Entertainment

Movies

University of California Press

The Postmodern Urban Condition

This book will change the way we understand cities. It provides readers with not only an introduction to cities and urbanism in the postmodern world but also overturns many common assumptions about urban structure.

Wiley/Blackwell

Not on Our Street

Taylor, S M.

Dear, M. J

Pion Ltd.

How to Name Your Boat

Western Marine Enterprises

Robert Flick's work extends the same visual, philosophical and theoretically fertile tradition set by the highly influential and iconoclastic Robert Heinecken. But while Heinecken's emphasis can be said to rely on the manner in which images function within the intersection of popular culture and the fine arts, Flick has characteristically concentrated more intently on the artifactual, conceptual and receptive properties of photography--specifically landscape photography. The distinctive retinal and conceptual strength of Flick's work has been evident since his early essay-format images of the 1960s. In his more recent digital work, he extends his participation in the critical discourse established around the interpretation, evaluation and assessment of visual constructs related to the landscape. And yet, this movement has only become possible through a conceptual transition from a position of creating unique objects to an emphasis on interactivity and multiple access using still and moving images that allow for the work's insertion into the broader socio-political arena where the application defines the discourse.

Robbert Flick: Trajectories

Arts & Photography

Ulin, David

Individual Artists

Steidl/LACMA

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Books by Dear, Michael