{"product_id":"the-edge-of-the-plain-how-borders-make-and-break-our-world-9781324037040","title":"The Edge of the Plain: How Borders Make and Break Our World","description":"\u003cp\u003eSince the earliest known marker denoting the edge of one land and the beginning of the next--a stone column inscribed with Sumerian cuneiform--borders have been imagined, mapped, moved, and fought over. In \u003cem\u003eThe Edge of the Plain\u003c\/em\u003e, James Crawford skillfully blends history, travel writing, and reportage to trace these borderlines throughout history and across the globe.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat happens on the ground when we impose lines on a map that contradict how humans have always lived--and moved? Crawford confronts that question from bloody territorial disputes in Mesopotamia, to the Sápmi lands of Scandinavia, the shifting boundaries of the Israel-Palestine conflict, efforts to build a wall on the United States-Mexico border, and the dangerous border crossings pursued by migrants into Europe.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnd yet the role of borders extends beyond specific sites of conflict. On the largest scale, borders define the limits of empire--the two walls in Britain that once represented the northwestern edge of the Roman Empire; the mythological eastern gate supposedly closed off by Alexander the Great; China's virtual \"Great Firewall.\" On the smallest, human scale, cell walls are the last physical barrier against disease, after lines of quarantine have failed.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFinally, as \u003cem\u003eThe Edge of the Plain\u003c\/em\u003e reveals, humans have not only made their mark on the landscape: the landscape itself is now changing, more and more rapidly due to climate change. Crawford introduces us to both the Alpine watershed--one such shifting, natural borderline--and the \"Great Green Wall\" in Africa, envisioned as an international, community-built bulwark against desertification.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBorders are as old as human civilization, and focal points for today's colliding forces of nationalism, climate change, globalization, and mass migration. \u003cem\u003eThe Edge of the Plain\u003c\/em\u003e illuminates these lines of separation past and present, how we define them--and how they define us.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"W. W. Norton \u0026 Company","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50673843896594,"sku":"9781324037040","price":21.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_30e37786-5da6-44ef-934f-3758530b45f3.jpg?v=1733845186","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-edge-of-the-plain-how-borders-make-and-break-our-world-9781324037040","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}