Description
Book SynopsisOn the Edge grew out of a lifetime spent living and traveling across the American Southwest, from San Antonio to Los Angeles. Char Miller examines this borderland region through a native's eyes and contemplates its considerable conflicts. Internal to the various US states and Mexico's northern tier, there are struggles over water, debates over undocumented immigrants, the criminalizing of the border, and the region's evolution into a no-man's land. The book investigates how we live on this contested land --how we make our place in its oft-arid terrain; an ecosystem that burns easily and floods often and defies our efforts to nestle in its foothills, canyons, and washes. Exploring the challenges in the Southwest of learning how to live within this complex natural system while grasping its historical and environmental frameworks. Understanding these framing devices is critical to reaching the political accommodations necessary to build a more generous society, a more habitable landscape, and a more just community, whatever our documented status or species.
Trade Review"One of the environmental history profession's most thoughtful and astute observers (not to mention most graceful writers) shares with us his accumulated wisdom about the pasts and presents of places her has come to know deeply...Wise, witty, and intriguing."-Environmental History
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Center Points 1. Alamo City White Gold City Brew Organizing for War Political Legend Buyer's Remorse Danger: Work Ahead Holy Moses! Repairing Eden Springtime Central Core Going for Green Ebb and Flow Back to Nature 2. Rough Waters Rough Waters Storm Warning Ike's Wake 3. Borderline Anxieties Fiery Deaths Lockup Highway Robbery Homeland Insecurity Why Friendship Park Mattered Praise Song Political Agency Bulldozing Nature Behind Bars Walled Off Just Litter Wandering in the Wilderness 4. Southland On Fire Up in Smoke Sliding Away Shaken and Stirred On the Wild Side Forget the Garden of Eden Let It Be Damaged Desert Step Back Net Loss Shady Dealings Breathe Deep Pumped Dry Course Correction Mud Fight Afterword: Homeward Bound Acknowledgments
