Border Land, Border Water

Beginning with the boundary survey of the 1850s, this book follows how the US-Mexico border was physically built, from the early markers and ports of entry to the highways, fences, surveillance systems, and dams of the present day. C. J. Alvarez treats these structures as a single, layered history, looking at how each new project was added to the last.

The author describes a shift from the optimism of the nineteenth century, when people believed that construction could govern the flow of people, goods, and water, to the growing evidence by the 1960s that these structures had serious design flaws. Rather than abandoning the approach, federal agencies in both countries usually answered failures with more building. Alvarez calls this pattern "compensatory building," a response to policies on immigration, illicit markets, and the natural environment that did not work as intended.

By examining how the border came to look and operate as it does, the book offers a new framework for current arguments about the future of the boundary between the two countries.