Fugitive Landscapes The Forgotten History of the U S Mexico Borderlands

Published in Cooperation with the William P. Clements Center for Southwest StudiesIn the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Mexicans and Americans joined together to transform the U.S.and#150;Mexico borderlands into a crossroads of modern economic development. This book reveals the forgotten story of their ambitious dreams and their ultimate failure to control this fugitive terrain.

Focusing on a mining region that spilled across the Arizonaand#150;Sonora border, this book shows how entrepreneurs, corporations, and statesmen tried to domesticate nature and society within a transnational context. Efforts to tame a and#147;wildand#8221; frontier were stymied by labor struggles, social conflict, and revolution. Fugitive Landscapes explores the making and unmaking of the U.S.and#150;Mexico border, telling how ordinary people resisted the domination of empires, nations, and corporations to shape transnational history on their own terms.and#160; By moving beyond traditional national narratives, it offers new lessons for our own border-crossing age.

"Truett has written one of the most compelling borderlands narratives to date. . . . Highly recommended."—Choice

"Samuel Truett not only recovers the hidden history of the Arizona-Sonora borderlands and their often-shadowy residents but also reinterprets familiar events in a new light. He makes an original and major contribution to borderlands history."—Benjamin Johnson, Southern Methodist University

“Samuel Truett provides a concrete example of what transnational history looks like and what it can reveal.  Fugitive Landscapes puts into practice what many American historians urge, but rarely do themselves.”—Richard White, Stanford University

“When Mexicos far northern frontera collided with the U.S. Western frontier in the mid nineteenth century, the resulting merged space is both shared and contested—culturally, socially, ideologically, politically.  In remapping this distinct borderland to highlight transnational relationships between ethnic groups (Yaquis, Apaches, Chinese, Mexicans and Americans), individuals (Sonoran strongman Rafael Izábal, American copper industrialist William C. Greene, immigrant statesman cum military commander Emilio Kosterlitzky are just three colorful figures from this binational historys near-forgotten central casting), and state agencies, Truett demonstrates convincingly how Mexican and U.S. histories intersect and intermingle just as the space they share clash and merge.  This intriguing study also suggests how differently national histories would look and feel when re-centered and viewed from a transnational vantage point.” —Evelyn Hu-DeHart, Brown University

"Fugitive Landscapes may be one of the best pieces of research and writing about the historical geography of any part of the Mexican borderlands. . . [It] is a vibrant example . . . of inspired historical regional geographic scholarship."—Daniel Arreola, Journal of Cultural Geography 

"This is prophetic history at its best. . . [It] serves as a grim warning to the neoliberal architects of NAFTA that market reforms and industrial development 'have rarely turned out as planned'."—Elliott Young, The Americas

"Truett's vignettes are pearls, making the work enjoyable reading."—Rodolfo F. Acuña, Journal of American History

"This is a book that I admire: drawing on a deep well of research in U.S. and Mexican archives Truett tells a compelling story."—Don Mitchell, Western Historical Quarterly

Samuel Truett is associate professor, Department of History, University of New Mexico.