Review by Choice Review
The study of place, displacement, and sociopolitical demarcations has, in a little more than four decades, become a concentrated domain of inquiry. Driving the study of borders is the understanding that humans may be "predisposed to spatial organization, but how we structure territory, and to what end, has evolved quite radically over time reflecting changing political, social, and economic contexts." Borders continues Oxford's broad-ranging series of short introductory surveys that provide well-written, comprehensive, and accessible entrees into the literature. This short book draws connections among conventionally, physically, and politically demarcated spaces, from rooms in a private house to national borders and beyond. Understanding the multiple consequences of these physical and conceptual demarcations or borders is vitally important because they often determine how states, communities, and individuals interact with one another politically, socially, and economically. The deterritorialization of power and authority does not mean that borders are insignificant, especially in a context of increased movement and migration across ever-changing types of demarcated spaces. Rather, in the current "globalized" world, Diener (geography, Univ. of Kansas) and Hagen (geography, Marshall Univ.) provide an eminently useful historicized introduction to the study of the current detachment of the power of and from place and space. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels. A. B. Commissiong West Texas A&M University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
