Border policing : a history of enforcement and evasion in North America

Summary/Review: "This collection of original essays brings together a dozen pieces on the history of policing practices along both the southern and northern US borders. The two volume editors themselves have done work that represents the cutting edge of scholarship on the respective borders: Diaz in Border Contraband, and Karibo in Sin City North, her study of the Detroit-Windsor border region. The thematic reach of the book matches the geographic and chronological reach; as the editors put it, the project "explores how particular legal codes and regulatory practices have attempted to define and delineate the parameters of the state; how citizenship is defined in both law and in practice, and how state regulatory apparatuses monitor and police flows of goods and people across international divides." The project begins in the nineteenth century, with an examination of the policing of waterways during the War of 1812. Each subsequent chapter traces how contested jurisdictions and competing interests shaped the practice of border policing through the early 21st century. The collection considers critical historical moments and developments-including the Porfiriato and Mexican Revolution; the struggles over Indian sovereignty; the creation of immigration laws; Prohibition; the rise of transnational drug trafficking; and perception of borders in popular culture. In doing so, the volume examines the powerful ways that federal authorities impose political agendas on borderlands, and how local border residents and regions interact with--and at times push back against--such agendas. By blending political, legal, social, and cultural history, this collection provides new insight into the distinct realities that shaped the borders dividing the US, Canada, and Mexico"--