Description
Book SynopsisHistorians and anthropologists unravel the interplay of the national and transnational, and of scarcity and abundance, in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.
Trade Review“[S]tudents of the US-Mexico borderlands and people interested in the problems posed by globalization (which is connecting asymmetrical markets together around the world) will fin a lot to ponder in this collection. Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.” - M. J. Van de Logt,
Choice“With its many illustrations and diverse essays,
Land of Necessity is an excellent collection that sheds light on how the Mexican-United States border has created a unique culture of consumerism that has been impacted by wider trends in trade, politics, migration, and marketing in both countries.” - Peter Dedek,
Southwestern Historical Quarterly“This collection of essays by historians and anthropologists significantly deepens our knowledge about the cultural and commercial exchanges connecting the United States and Mexico. It will influence borderlands scholars, who will see the region anew through the prism of consumer culture, and historians of consumption, who rarely look to the borderlands for insight into national trends.” - Geraldo Lujan Cadava,
Journal of American History“
Land of Necessity offers a tantalizing variety of perspectives on consumerism and the circulation of merchandise in the US-Mexico borderlands. . . . Focusing on transnational consumer culture, as
Land of Necessity so ably does, is an approach that will no doubt provide further insightful riches to be distributed, contemplated, and shared.” - Andrew Grant Wood,
Canadian Journal of History“I do not know of any other single volume devoted to the history of consumption along the U.S.-Mexico border. Alexis McCrossen has identified a very important area of inquiry that has been pursued only in scattered and fragmentary ways until now, and she has assembled an ambitious, well thought out, engagingly written, and remarkably well integrated collection.”—
Andres Reséndez, author of
Changing National Identities at the Frontier: Texas and New Mexico, 1800–1850“This collection of cutting-edge essays reminds us that the U.S.-Mexico borderland is also a consumer marketplace and that consumption is motivated as much by necessity as desire.
Land of Necessity makes a powerful case that this border matters for understanding consumer capitalism, not just immigration.”—
Lizabeth Cohen, author of
A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of mass Consumption in Postwar America“
Land of Necessity offers a tantalizing variety of perspectives on consumerism and the circulation of merchandise in the US-Mexico borderlands. . . . Focusing on transnational consumer culture, as
Land of Necessity so ably does, is an approach that will no doubt provide further insightful riches to be distributed, contemplated, and shared.” -- Andrew Grant Wood * Canadian Journal of History *
“[S]tudents of the US-Mexico borderlands and people interested in the problems posed by globalization (which is connecting asymmetrical markets together around the world) will fin a lot to ponder in this collection. Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.” -- M. J. Van de Logt * Choice *
“This collection of essays by historians and anthropologists significantly deepens our knowledge about the cultural and commercial exchanges connecting the United States and Mexico. It will influence borderlands scholars, who will see the region anew through the prism of consumer culture, and historians of consumption, who rarely look to the borderlands for insight into national trends.” -- Geraldo Lujan Cadava * Journal of American History *
Table of ContentsMaps
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Land of Necessity / Alexis McCrossen
Part I. Histories of Nations, Borderlands, and Consumers
Drawing Boundaries between Markets, Nations, and Peoples, 1650-1940 / Alexis McCrossen
Disrupting Boundaries: Consumer Capitalism and Culture in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, 1940-2008 / Alexis McCrossen
Part II. National and Transnational Circuits of Consumption
Domesticating the Border: Manifest Destiny and the "Comforts of Life" in the U.S.-Mexico Boundary Commission and Gadsden Purchase, 1848-1854 / Amy S. Greenberg
Selling the Border: Trading Land, Attracting Tourists, and Marketing American Consumption on the Baja California Border, 1900-1934 / Rachel St. John
Cinema on the U.S.-Mexico Border: American Motion Pictures and Mexican Audiences, 1896-1930 / Laura isabel Serna
Promoting the Pacific Borderlands: Leisure and Labor in Southern California, 1870-1950 / Lawrence Culver
Finding Mexico's Great Show Window: A Tale of Two Borderlands, 1960-1975 / Evan R. Ward
Part III. Consumption in National and Transnational Spaces
At the Edge of the Storm: Northern Mexico's Rural Peoples in a New Regime of Consumption, 1880-1940 / Josef Barton
Confined to the Margins: The Origins and Nature of the Underground Economy and Smuggling among the Native People of the Borderlands / Robert Perez
Using and Sharing: Direct Selling in the Borderlands / Peter S. Cahn
El Dompe,
Los Yonkes and
Las Segundas: Consumption's Other Side in El Paso—Ciudad Juárez / Sarah Hill
Reflections
The Study of Borderland Consumption: Potentials and Precautions / Howard Campbell and Josiah McC. Heyman
On La Frontera and Cultures of Consumption: An Essay of Images / Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo
Bibliography
Contributors
Index
