Description
Book SynopsisHighlighting race as both an overt and underlying force that shaped life in and beyond the Zone, this title details how local traditions and colonial policies interacted and frequently clashed.
Trade Review"Donoghue’s social history of the Canal Zone is an indispensable source for our understanding of the good, bad, and ugly of this experiment in a (perhaps) American empire." -- Russel Crandall * American Historical Review *
"In this fascinating social history, Michael E. Donoghue breaks new ground by exploring not just a single group in the Panama Canal Zone, but all of the diverse and conflicted resident populations and the relationships between them, particularly in the years after World War II. He shows how societies in conflict also collaborated, and he locates these interactions in relation to the broader U.S. imperial project in the Canal Zone."—
John Lindsay-Poland, author of
Emperors in the Jungle: The Hidden History of the U.S. in Panama"The book should be required reading for anyone seeking to get a sense of life around the Panama Canal, especially in World War II and the postwar decades.” -- Noel Maurer * Journal of American History *
"
Borderland on the Isthmus is the most thorough and best depiction of day-to-day reality in the post-war Canal Zone to date.... The theoretical questions that linger here... make this anthro-historical study all the more important to read for historians interested in Latin America and the US empire." -- Ezer Vierba * Journal of Latin American Studies *
"
Borderland on the Isthmus is an outstanding achievement, highly recommended for scholars of empires in general and the US empire in particular, borderland studies, US diplomatic history, Latin American studies, gender studies, cultural studies, and social history." -- Atalia Shragai * Canadian Journal of History *
“This readable yet academically documented book contributes to American and Canal Zone historiography. It will interest general readers as well as students of postcolonial history, American imperialism, and late twentieth-century US history.” -- Robin E. Zenger * Hispanic American Historical Review *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction 1 1. Borderland on the Isthmus: The Changing Boundaries and Frontiers of the Panama Canal Zone 8 2. Race and Identity in the Zone-Panama Borderland: Zonians Uber Alles 50 3. Race and Identity in the Zone-Panama Borderland: West Indians Contra Todos 93 4. Desire, Sexuality, and Gender in the Zone-Panama Borderland 128 5. The U.S. Military: Armed Guardians of the Borderland 168 6. "Injuring the Power System": Crime and Resistance in the Borderland 203 Epilogue: The Zone-Panama Borderland and the Complexity of U.S. Empire 245 Notes 255 Bibliography 307 Index 333
