| Author | : Charles D. Thompson, Jr. |
| Publisher | : University of Texas Press |
| Total Pages | : 329 |
| Release | : 2017-09-05 |
| Genre | : Political Science |
| ISBN | : 1477314008 |
This compelling chronicle of a journey along the entire U.S.-Mexico border shifts the conversation away from danger and fear to the shared histories and aspirations that bind Mexicans and Americans despite the border walls.
| Author | : Charles D. Thompson |
| Publisher | : Univ of TX + ORM |
| Total Pages | : 392 |
| Release | : 2015-04-15 |
| Genre | : Social Science |
| ISBN | : 0292771991 |
This blend of travelogue and reportage from the US-Mexico border is “an exploration of 2,000 miles of fraught, rugged and deeply contested territory” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). In a quest to capture a real-life, close-up view of the land where so many have been kicked, cussed, spit on, arrested, detained, trafficked, or killed—and the subject that has been debated for decades by politicians and commentators—Charles D. Thompson records his journey from Boca Chica to Tijuana, and his conversations with everyone from border officials to migrant workers to local residents. Along the journey, five centuries of cultural history (indigenous, French, Spanish, Mexican, African American, colonist, and US), wars, and legislation unfold. Among the terrain traversed: walls and more walls, unexpected roadblocks, and patrol officers; a golf course (you could drive a ball across the border); a Civil War battlefield (you could camp there); the southernmost plantation in the US; a hand-drawn ferry, a road-runner tracked desert and a breathtaking national park; barbed wire, bridges, and a trucking-trade thoroughfare; ghosts with guns; obscured, unmarked, and unpaved roads; a Catholic priest and his dogs, artwork, icons, and political cartoons; a sheriff and a chain-smoking mayor; a Tex-Mex eatery empty of customers and a B&B shuttering its doors; murder-laden newspaper headlines at breakfast; the kindness of the border-crossing underground; and too many elderly, impoverished, ex-U.S. farmworkers, braceros, who lined up to have Thompson take their photograph. “A firsthand look at how modern U.S. border policy has affected the people in the region, from migrant workers to indigenous people to border patrol agents to residents of economically stagnant towns just north of the boundary. The result is a travel memoir with a conscience, an extension of Thompson’s ongoing work to humanize the hotly debated region.” —The News & Observer
| Author | : Benjamin Heber Johnson |
| Publisher | : |
| Total Pages | : 246 |
| Release | : 2008 |
| Genre | : Biography & Autobiography |
| ISBN | : |
An evocative portrayal of a remote place that offers a whole new way of looking at the U.S.-Mexico border Mexico and America have met for eight generations on their shared border. In this compelling book, photographer Jeffrey Gusky and historian Benjamin Johnson capture this encounter through their mesmerizing portrayal of Roma, Texas. European culture left its mark here, but it was brought by mixed-race, Spanish-speaking pioneers who practiced Muslim irrigation techniques and believed that they were descended from Jews. Triumphant American armies made this region part of the United States, but the descendants of those they conquered have fought in every American conflict from the Civil War to Iraq. Racial strife divided this land, but slaves gained freedom by fleeing south to Mexico and Hispanics reacquired wealth and power by buying out Anglos. Although today the area is one of the poorest in the United States, the fortune that founded Citibank was made here and the town has inspired such authors as John Steinbeck and Larry McMurtry. In a time when the border is a source of controversy and division, Johnson's unexpected stories and Gusky's haunting photographs demonstrate how deeply the story of the border is also the story of America itself.
| Author | : Zlatko Mandzuka |
| Publisher | : Author House |
| Total Pages | : 495 |
| Release | : 2013 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 1481790633 |
The Odyssey is considered to be the most beautiful literary work of the Western civilization, and Homer the first and the greatest poet ever. The book Demystifying the Odyssey is interpreting Homer's epic in a unique and completely new way. For the first time in literature, this book explains the events and phenomena that Odysseus saw and experienced, and which were considered so far as a result of the Poet's rich imagination. So, this book reveals how Odysseus went to Hades kingdom of the dead souls; what are in reality Scylla and Charybdis; who were the sirens; how the Island of Aeolus', the ruler of the winds, actually floated; how Circa turned Odysseus's sailors into pigs and other. Besides that, this book also reveals the fallacy two and a half millennia long, dating back from the first historians Herodotus and Thucydides, according to which Odysseus was wandering the Mediterranean sea. It further provides numerous proofs that Homer's hero was actually wandering the Adriatic. For all those readers who are familiar with the ancient Greek literature this book will be great news and quite a surprise. On the other hand, for those who have not been quite aware of the old Greek world it will provide great knowledge on the first European civilization. In any case, this will surely be an interesting reading for all of them.
| Author | : Stephanie Elizondo Griest |
| Publisher | : UNC Press Books |
| Total Pages | : 310 |
| Release | : 2017-05-08 |
| Genre | : Travel |
| ISBN | : 1469631601 |
After a decade of chasing stories around the globe, intrepid travel writer Stephanie Elizondo Griest followed the magnetic pull home--only to discover that her native South Texas had been radically transformed in her absence. Ravaged by drug wars and barricaded by an eighteen-foot steel wall, her ancestral land had become the nation's foremost crossing ground for undocumented workers, many of whom perished along the way. The frequency of these tragedies seemed like a terrible coincidence, before Elizondo Griest moved to the New York / Canada borderlands. Once she began to meet Mohawks from the Akwesasne Nation, however, she recognized striking parallels to life on the southern border. Having lost their land through devious treaties, their mother tongues at English-only schools, and their traditional occupations through capitalist ventures, Tejanos and Mohawks alike struggle under the legacy of colonialism. Toxic industries surround their neighborhoods while the U.S. Border Patrol militarizes them. Combating these forces are legions of artists and activists devoted to preserving their indigenous cultures. Complex belief systems, meanwhile, conjure miracles. In All the Agents and Saints, Elizondo Griest weaves seven years of stories into a meditation on the existential impact of international borderlines by illuminating the spaces in between and the people who live there.
| Author | : Stephanie Elizondo Griest |
| Publisher | : UNC Press Books |
| Total Pages | : 320 |
| Release | : 2019-11-27 |
| Genre | : Travel |
| ISBN | : 1469659255 |
After a decade of chasing stories around the globe, intrepid travel writer Stephanie Elizondo Griest followed the magnetic pull home—only to discover that her native South Texas had been radically transformed in her absence. Ravaged by drug wars and barricaded by an eighteen-foot steel wall, her ancestral land had become the nation's foremost crossing ground for undocumented workers, many of whom perished along the way. The frequency of these tragedies seemed like a terrible coincidence until Elizondo Griest moved to the New York–Canada borderlands. Once she began to meet Mohawks from the Akwesasne Nation, she recognized striking parallels to life on the southern border. Having lost their land through devious treaties, their mother tongues at English-only schools, and their traditional occupations through capitalist ventures, Tejanos and Mohawks alike struggle under the legacy of colonialism. Toxic industries surround their neighborhoods, while the U.S. Border Patrol militarizes them. Combating these forces are legions of artists and activists devoted to preserving their indigenous cultures. Complex belief systems, meanwhile, conjure miracles. In All the Agents and Saints, Elizondo Griest weaves seven years of stories into a meditation on the existential impact of international borderlines by illuminating the spaces in between and the people who live there. This edition features a new preface by the author.
| Author | : Alexandra Campana |
| Publisher | : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG |
| Total Pages | : 282 |
| Release | : 2020-08-10 |
| Genre | : Social Science |
| ISBN | : 3110678608 |
The experience of witnessing and undertaking border crossings has become a pillar of the contemporary human condition. In order to respond to our global, multidimensional social reality, writers need to generate innovative forms of narration that expand the confines of literary tradition. This study discusses four types of border crossing (migration, intercultural dialogue, multicultural identities, military invasion) and presents literary aesthetics that unfold in Algeria, China, France, Germany, Romania, Switzerland, Trinidad and Tobago, the UK, and the USA. These analyses move from the fall of the Iron Curtain to the rise of the internet, and from the turn of the millennium to the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Positioned in the field of comparative literature, this book draws upon an extensive background of theoretical thought (e.g. Adorno/Horkheimer, Arendt, Dawkins, Fanon, Freud, Kristeva, Žižek) and reaches into other academic disciplines (such as religious studies). Border crossings thus serve as both theme and methodology, which not only leads to a new definition of post-modern writing, but also underlines literature's relevance in a global society driven by public discourse.
| Author | : Emma Fick |
| Publisher | : HarperCollins |
| Total Pages | : 243 |
| Release | : 2022-04-19 |
| Genre | : Travel |
| ISBN | : 0063080370 |
An illustrated travelogue that brilliantly captures artist and illustrator Emma Fick’s epic train journey on the Trans-Siberian Railway—from Beijing through Mongolia to Moscow—including more than 200 watercolor illustrations and handwritten text that includes cultural and historical information as well as invaluable travel tips. In May 2015, on a trip through the Baltics and Scandinavia, artist and illustrator Emma Fick and her boyfriend (now husband) Helvio discovered a worn copy of the Trans-Siberian Handbook at a secondhand shop in Helsinki. Many travelers from around the globe had used the guide to journey on the longest train ride in the world. Emma and Helvio took their find as a sign to embark on their own adventure on the legendary railway that has captured the imaginations and curiosities of many travelers and explorers since its construction a century ago. A year and a half later, with Trans-Siberian Handbook in hand, they boarded the train in Beijing. Their odyssey was just beginning. Border Crossings is the chronicle of their unforgettable 26-day, 8-city journey across Asia to Moscow. Emma offers a concise history of the railway and in vivid, visual language, takes you across a vast landscape of rural villages and bustling urban centers, through open food markets brimming with delicacies and a snowy mountain wilderness dotted with clusters of gers—nomadic homes. Emma’s detailed observations and lush descriptions, accompanied by detailed colorful illustrations, bring this remarkable journey of discovery and adventure—the landscapes, food, people and cultures—to life. Experience drinking salty milk tea, eating shoe sole cake (fried cakes shaped like shoe soles piled high and topped with milk curds and hard candies), and riding camels in Mongolia. In Russia, wander through a snow-draped countryside filled with stands of birch trees, explore the wonders of freshwater Lake Baikal—the source of omul, a ubiquitous and beloved fish delicacy—go ice fishing, and take a self-guided tour of Moscow. With its hand-drawn maps, its wealth of illustrations of every aspect of the experience—from sleeping quarters on a train to the highlights of a monastery or the details of a memorable meal, Border Crossings is an invitation to experience new destinations and cultures first-hand—to travel the Trans-Siberian Railway as never before, whether you’re a nomad looking for a new vacation destination, an armchair traveler, or just culturally curious.
| Author | : Charles D. Thompson, Jr. |
| Publisher | : University of Texas Press |
| Total Pages | : 329 |
| Release | : 2015-04-15 |
| Genre | : Political Science |
| ISBN | : 0292756631 |
"Border Odyssey takes us on a drive toward understanding the U.S./Mexico divide: all 1,969 miles -- from Boca Chica to Tijuana -- pressing on with the useful fiction of a map...Along the journey, five centuries of cultural history (indigenous, French, Spanish, Mexican, African American, colonist, and U.S.), wars, and legislation unfold. And through observation, conversation, and meditation, Border Odyssey scopes the stories of the people and towns on both sides..." -- Book jacket .
