La frontera / Borderlands

Book Description

Experimental, inventive, provocative and above all visionary, Gloria Anzaldua's work is widely recognized among scholars of Chicano/Latino, Gay and Lesbian, Women's, Postcolonial, Ethnic and Cultural Studies as a foundational elaboration of the politics and poetics of cultural hybridity. Both Borderlands/La Frontera and Making Face/Making Soul: Haciendo Caras are all about understanding the complex and competing social, political and cultural forces that shape-sometimes quite brutally-the experiences of women of color in the U.S., and they are all about taking that understanding and mobilizing it toward creative and revisionary efforts for making social change.

"One of the 100 Best Books of the Twentieth Century"-Hungry Mind Review (Spring 1999)

"Anzaldua's voyage of discovery, focused on the border and the new mestiza, is a preparation for the future. The border is a bundle of contradictions and ambiguities... This hybrid crossroads is just the right kind of training ground. It is fertile area for mutations and transformations. In Borderlands/ La Frontera, Gloria Anzaldua is our guide with an all-encompassing vision to charge the border with meaning."-The Americas Review

"[She] explores in prose and poetry the murky, precarious existence of those living on the frontier between cultures and languages. . . .she meditates on the conditions of Chicanos in Anglo culture, women in Hispanic culture, and lesbians in the straight world. ...a powerful document."-Library Journal

A "Best of 1987" Library Journal selection.

"Anzaldua's vision encompasses spiritual and experiential aspects of female power, as well as the day-to-day courage and struggle that has characterized Chicano survival."-The San Francisco Chronicle

Customer Reviews:

Classic.......2007-06-28

Not much can be said to some of the postings I see here--to those that suggest the third tier prose, those that call this work "racist," those that implore statements like "I hated it." These are the same people that vote for their own oppression, these are the very people that fancy their success on some sense of entitlement. Relax, you do not have to agree, but hear me out.

Classic. Classic.

With the colorful enagement of gender, consciousness, and subconscious indeterminacy, the creation of a new utopia (racial, linguistic, gender, cultural, etc) is suggested by the prose of self actualization. This book is about all of us--it is about the exchanges we have with domination, be it familial or societal. It's loose diction is its very strength, it does not confide to the subordination of patriachal, hegemonic forces of tradition. The reflexive allegorical stories and unpacking of our human complexity give it a breathing body and a compelling face.

Anzaldua suffered greatly for not writing like "the male pimps," those that claim a fanatical space in some high art and legitimacy canon. It was her filter of difference, it was her cries for something else, that connects with everyone at a spiritual level. I do not know how this can be connected to some mundane powerpoint presentation at a university; this piece involves the full of enagement of mind, body, and soul. To contextualize it--one needs to read consistently. In order to feel out her domain, one must be willing go beyond what "our mom said" or "what our 6th grade teacher" told us about this and that. This about the struggle for agency; this about search for Thoreau's Walden amidst sociohistorical forces that still "do not see."

Welcome it. This classic work of literature, philosophy, education...remains one of the most unrecognized treatises on being and becoming.

Overrated Drivel.......2007-01-16

I find it interesting that such a supposedly important and relevant contemporary work has only been reviewed by 11 people at the time of this writing. That alone tells you all you need to know since this is a book that is classed under both Latino and Women's Studies, and is part of many university literary programs.

The book is pretentious claptrap of the worst kind. If this book were judged on its merits rather than by popular, politically correct notions, it wouldn't come close to making the cut.

Alas, academia has embraced the book as a great work, and so it is required reading for an English M.A. program at a major university that I was accepted into. An English M.A.! Once I saw that this book was part of the program, I didn't even bother registering.

I don't mind rants against social, cultural and economic injustices. I've read many. But Ms. Anzaldua is no James Baldwin, that's for sure.

an excruciatingly painful read - only do so if you must.......2006-09-18

This book is a tormented stream of consciousness from a lady who was obviously fighting major demons. It is exactly the type of book that you would expect an amateur academic to "wow" and "gush" over, as it nicely fits into the dogmatic radicalism of Chicano Studies. The discerning reader, on the other hand, sees page after page of outdated cliches, sob-stories, and anger-filled tantrums. Anzaldua would like you to believe her suffering and self-searching is all the fault of the "white" culture encroaching upon the enlightened cosmic race of the mestiza. She'd like you to think that her mestiza/chicana/lesbian/female identity is the sole cause of her misfortune and hardship. What becomes overwhelmingly evident upon reading her unabashed torrent of decadent self-pity is the learned and self-enforced quality of her "opression". Anzaldua helplessly wallows in her romantic fatalism dreaming of the great mestiza revolution that will fix all of the world's problems by turning the middle class value system upside down.

If you like romantic literature, and enjoy the hopeless and sorrowful ramblings of society's self-marginalized, I might suggest "The Sorrows of the Young Werther" by Goethe or some poems by Lord Byron - at least then you get some literary value.

Racist Garbage.......2006-08-08

While most reviewers seem to be bent on lauding Gloria Anzaldúa's "insightful and progressive" writings, I can't help but take a different viewpoint. The vast majority of her essays, while cloaked in a sense of righteous equality, are quite simply racist drivel. She speaks of acceptance and tolerance for foreign cultures in America, and harps on the evils of correcting students when they use improper English, yet instills her writing with a blatant and offensive racism.

I make specific reference to the article "How to Tame A Wild Tongue". In her conclusion, she praises the perseverance and endurance of the mestizo race/culture, making reference to walking by "the crumbling ashes" of American civilization. An eagerness is felt to see the day that "white laws and commerce will rot in the desert". One would be hard pressed to come up with a more hypocritical conclusion. Here is an author preaching tolerance and acceptance of different languages and cultures throughout her entire article. She whines about the troubles she had fitting in with English speaking people. She goes in depth to explain the numerous bastardizations of Spanish that are spoken in various Hispanic cultures and tries to convince us of how each is a viable language, even so-called "Spanglish", just a blend of English and Spanish that you might hear in a high school Spanish I class ("el chairo = chair,la ceilingo = ceiling, etc.) . And after all that talk of acceptance, she ends by completely blasting American culture and expressing her wish to see it crumble to dust, while at the same time presenting the mestizo as the dominant race which will endure this fall. Talk about racist. I understand pride of your country and people, but this goes far beyond simple nationalism, especially in light of the overall message of the article. Tolerance is right out the window here.

Don't be fooled by Anzaldúa's overly wordy diction and pseudo-intellectualism. She is a flat out racist that for some reason is tolerated (forget that, praised to the roof!) in many academic circles. Her educational philosophy is naive, irresponsible, and fundamentally flawed. Hopefully her writings will soon fall out of the limelight.

Borderlands/La Frontera's Philosophical import.......2006-05-02

Other reviewers have covered many of the qualities of the work, so I want to dwell on just one point - don't be fooled into thinking that this work is useful only as a personal study on Anzaldua's cultural/gender/queer theory.

Anzaldua is of high importance to any philosophy of the social; within her writing you can find the key insights of figures such as Derrida and Nietzsche, as they relate to personal identity crafted out of a fractured heritage. Her point is that we are ALL borderlanders given that the human condition involves being stretched across a chasm of self-alterity. Only through a full recognition of this can a critical inventory of the self be undertaken, which is a prerequisite to responsibility and genuine care of the self.

Living in the Borderland:The Evolution of Consciousness and the Challenge of Healing Trauma

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"Living in the Borderland" a winner!
Living in the Borderland. Jerome S. Bernstein
Livng in the Borderland. Jerome S. Bernstein
Seminal Work
Beyond therapy

Living in the Borderland:The Evolution of Consciousness and the Challenge of Healing Trauma
Jerome Bernstein
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1583917578

Book Description

Living in the Borderland addresses the evolution of Western consciousness and describes the emergence of the 'Borderland,' a spectrum of reality that is beyond the rational yet is palpable to an increasing number of individuals. Building on Jungian theory, Jerome Bernstein argues that a greater openness to transrational reality experienced by Borderland personalities allows new possibilities for understanding and healing confounding clinical and developmental enigmas.
In three sections, this book charts the evolution of Western consciousness, examines the psychological and clinical implications and looks at how the new Borderland consciousness bridges the mind-body divide. It challenges the standard clinical model, which views normality as an absence of pathology and equates normality with the rational, and abnormality with the transrational. Jerome Bernstein describes how psychotherapy itself often contributes to the alienation of many Borderland personalities by misdiagnosing the difference between the pathological and the sacred and uses case studies to illustrate the potential such misdiagnoses have for causing serious psychic and emotional damage to the patient.
This challenge to the orthodoxies and complacencies of Western medicine's concept of pathology will interest Jungian Analysts, Psychoanalysts, Psychotherapists and Psychiatrists.

Customer Reviews:

"Living in the Borderland" a winner!.......2007-06-20

There are lots of reviews listed here which endeavor to summarize Mr. Bernstein's book. I found his thesis thoughtful and revolutionary, and comforting..since I've considered myself a borderlander for years. His treatment de-pathologizes us space cadets who have been shocked into retreating from the harsh cultural milleau of American society into an unworldly misty place. Spending time in Nature is often our only calming option.

At the same time, living in a borderland brings with it...it seems to me...a peculiar paralysis in dealing with economic and other social realities we can't avoid. It can be a form of escape from lovelessness and confusion which stifles the ego. Egolessness is not the answer, in my own opinion for healthy individuation and living a life of purpose.

I would complement Bernstein's book with Richard Lind's "The Seeking Self" and Greg Mogenson's book, "A Most Accursed Religion" to help reframe our view of ourselves and the Universe/God. Individuation requires that we be able to take responsibility for ourselves and maturing. Is it really a God we are experiencing in breaking the gateways between ego and the Unconscious, or is it the destruction of consciousness and ego?

Great read though. Don't miss it!

Living in the Borderland. Jerome S. Bernstein.......2006-01-21

This is an important work, both in a psychological and cultural sense. Bernstein is writing about "Borderland" personalities and environmental illness but these two issues also relate to a sea change going on below the surface of the Western psyche. Bernstein is one of a very small number of people who is trying to track this sea change -- pointing us to its possibilities and its potential dangers. Living in the Borderland is a big picture book that dares to ask the really important cultural questions of our day.

Livng in the Borderland. Jerome S. Bernstein.......2006-01-11

In his book Living in the Borderland, Jungian Analyst Jerome Bernstein provides a fascinating account of the development of the Western ego from an historical interpretation of the Bible down to our present post-Cold War environment. The author posits that this development has moved the Western psyche away from its roots in Nature into an ever more abstracted intellectual consciousness. As the human species approaches the very real potential for self-annihilation through nuclear assault and ultimate environmental degradation, an evolutionary shift in psychic consciousness has begun, a shift that appears in a growing number of individuals. In a Darwinian sense, it is an evolutionary manifestation of species survival. This shift is evidenced as the psyche's reconnection with Nature, to Nature in all its forms, animate and inanimate, that over the millennia the collective Western ego has neglected as it has developed increasingly toward abstraction of thought and the illusion of control. Through the years of his therapeutic practice Bernstein has seen many patients who are exhibiting this psychic shift. He calls these people Borderlanders, they live in a borderland between rational intellect and an emerging transrational consciousness.

For some Borderlanders, this awareness of the transrational as a dominant and controlling force in the psyche can be traumatic, not infrequently causing the individual to worry that he or she may be "crazy." Traditional psychological approaches to therapy often exacerbate this fear in that most therapists are unaware of the "normalcy" of this evolutionary shift in consciousness. They therefore tend to consider their Borderland patients as suffering from a psychic pathology. And herein is a major emphasis of this book: to alert psychological and medical practitioners as well as the patients themselves, that certain patients' experiences, while evidencing symptoms of psychic trauma, may not be pathological. The situation is often complicated, however, when a patient may evidence psychological illness that is genuinely symptomatic of traumatic experience, yet is unrelated to a patient's borderland consciousness. In this case it is the formidable task of the therapist to differentiate the pathological from the new evolutionary consciousness that is beginning to manifest.

The book is extremely well researched and thoroughly documented with personal testimonials, bibliographic references, and case studies, and contains an exhaustive bibliography. It is essential reading for all psychotherapists and medical practitioners and their patients, and is especially relevant to those suffering from or treating environmental illness. Individuals interested in Jungian psychology and early childhood educators who may be encountering this psychic phenomenon among children will find the guidance of this book invaluable.

Reviewed by Mari Graña, writer. Santa Fe, NM

Seminal Work.......2006-01-09

In this seminal work, Jerome Bernstein presents a highly literate account of the development of the Western ego and chronicles for the first time the stories of those individuals who are experiencing an evolutionary shift of consciousness that manifests itself in many ways, but particularly in receptivity to what he calls transrational reality and sensitivity to all things animate and, to the Western mind, inanimate. He establishes a link between this emerging consciousness and sensitivity to environmental toxins, capturing in graceful and compassionate language both the desperation of those who suffer from environmental illness and the frustration of those who valiantly seek ways to treat them. He differentiates strongly between those who live in the borderland and those who suffer from borderline personality disorder, suggesting therapeutic approaches based on clinical experience. He argues passionately for a new paradigm for the healing of trauma through a reconnecting of the Western medical model with a body-mind-spirit approach, most notably that of the Navajo medical model.

As someone who spent seven months in treatment for pesticide poisoning at an environmental clinic, I was blown away by the accuracy with which Mr. Bernstein portrayed the plight and the suffering of those who experience environmental illness as well as the approaches to treatment. As one who has experienced healing through a combination of allopathic and spiritual approaches, including antigen therapy, psychotherapy, energy medicine and Navajo ceremonials, I can testify to the power of the combined modalities. As a writer with one foot in the creative universe, I applaud the authenticity with which Mr. Bernstein describes the borderland.

A definite must read for clinicians, researchers, patients, and anyone interested in Jungian thought, transrational experience, and environmental illness.

Beyond therapy.......2006-01-09

This insightful work de-pathologizes and validates the highly sensitive person, exploring the social and ecological value of uber-intuitives and offering clinicians exciting new approaches to working with such individuals. A well-constructed and accessible read.

Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands

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Informative and thought-provoking

Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands
James F. Brooks
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0807853828
Release Date: 2001-12-04

Book Description

This sweeping, richly evocative study examines the origins and legacies of a flourishing captive exchange economy within and among native American and Euramerican communities throughout the Southwest Borderlands from the Spanish colonial era to the end of the nineteenth century.

Indigenous and colonial traditions of capture, servitude, and kinship met and meshed in the borderlands, forming a "slave system" in which victims symbolized social wealth, performed services for their masters, and produced material goods under the threat of violence. Slave and livestock raiding and trading among Apaches, Comanches, Kiowas, Navajos, Utes, and Spaniards provided labor resources, redistributed wealth, and fostered kin connections that integrated disparate and antagonistic groups even as these practices renewed cycles of violence and warfare.

Always attentive to the corrosive effects of the "slave trade" on Indian and colonial societies, the book also explores slavery's centrality in intercultural trade, alliances, and "communities of interest" among groups often antagonistic to Spanish, Mexican, and American modernizing strategies. The extension of the moral and military campaigns of the American Civil War to the Southwest in a regional "war against slavery" brought differing forms of social stability but cost local communities much of their economic vitality and cultural flexibility.

Customer Reviews:

Informative and thought-provoking.......2003-06-24

It would be foolish to give a book that won three prestigious professional awards (the Bancroft, Turner, and Parkman prizes) all in one year anything less than five stars, but the stars I have given this book can only hint at its remarkable contents. Captives and Cousins is based on prodigious research in original sources, and the research is wedded to a compelling and innovative analysis.
Brooks is not the first historian to show that the practice of taking captives and subjecting them to involuntary servitude was widespread in the American Southwest, but I don't think that anyone else has demonstrated so convincingly how deep and wide the cycle of capture and slavery was. Virtually all of the peoples who lived in and around New Mexico in the three centuries following the Spanish entrada (Native Americans and Europeans alike) took captives and engaged to one degree or another in the slave trade. Indians preyed on Spanish and Mexicans, and on themselves, and the Spanish and Mexicans returned the favor. To a degree, even Americans played a role in the trade after they became the controlling force in the region. They offered rewards for the return of captives and thus provided incentives for further captures. Brooks shows that the system of capture and slavery contributed in significant ways to the political, economic, and cultural development of the Southwest, providing a ready source of labor (and wives), knitting disparate peoples into webs of kinship (some biological, some adoptive, some deriving from Catholic godparenthood), helping to equalize wealth, and provoking endless cycles of revenge and retaliation. The system (a kind of "war of all against all") had its own logic, though the logic was crude and in many respects cruel.
Brooks does not saddle Europeans with all of the blame for the system. He makes it clear that capture and enslavement were practiced before the Spanish first arrived in the Southwest. But they participated in it and added refinements derived from their own Iberian traditions. In one sense, the book helps to challenge the myth of Indians as indigenous peoples "operating within subsistence-and-exchange economies that produced little intergroup conflict." Conflict there was, and in spades.
Brooks is an academic, and the book is addressed primarily to his fellow academics. General readers will find the text too dense for easy reading. I found some parts of the book slow going, but I persisted and, in the end, was glad I did. Captives and Cousins not only informed me; it made me think.

Nation-building in the Post-Soviet Borderlands: The Politics of National Identities

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Nation-building in the Post-Soviet Borderlands: The Politics of National Identities
Graham Smith , Vivien Law , Andrew Wilson , Annette Bohr , and Edward Allworth
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0521590450

Book Description

The emergence in 1991 of the fourteen borderland post-Soviet states has been accompanied by the reforging of their national identities. Such attempts to rethink or reimagine the nation have had a major impact in reshaping the political, cultural and social lives of both national and ethnic minority groups alike. This book analyzes these national identities and explores their consequences for the borderland states, with substantive studies drawn from the Baltic states, Ukraine and Belarus, Transcaucasia and Central Asia.

Average customer rating:

Not THAT weak, but not splatterpunk! Good spooky stories, no gore.
Shockingly weak
Hit and miss
Ignore the "BIG NAME" near the top of the cover
Chock full of "huh?" stories

From the Borderlands
Elizabeth E. Monteleone , and Thomas F. Monteleone
Manufacturer: Grand Central Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 0446610356

Customer Reviews:

Not THAT weak, but not splatterpunk! Good spooky stories, no gore........2007-09-25

Not exactly what I expected, but still worth reading. Good stories but not super scary or splatterpunkish.

Shockingly weak.......2006-08-06

In the early to mid-nineties, White Wolf (oh, how I miss their original fiction line) published a set of four anthologies under the title of BORDERLANDS. The only real rule was that there weren't any. Authors were encouraged to experiment. Clichés and common subject matter were to be avoided. These turned out to be four of the best collections of dark fiction ever published. The stories were original, diverse, and memorable.

After a nine-year gap, this fifth anthology finally appeared. What a disappointment.

FROM THE BORDERLANDS is filled with rambling, forgettable, often incoherent rubbish. The ubiquitous Bentley Little, an author who has essentially built a career on writing the same novel over and over, seems to think he can put any kind of bizarre nonsense down on paper and get it published. Unfortunately for us, he's right. (Little is the only author to have appeared in all five anthologies.) His piece appears to have been transcribed directly from a bad dream he might have had. It makes no sense - an absolute head-scratcher. Far too many of the stories are like this. The worst are both incoherent and tedious, like Barbara Malenky's "A Thing," whose narrator is barely literate.

Seeing the editors gush praise about each entry in the introductions only adds insult. I actually thought the Monteleones must have been on drugs when they read for this volume.

Out of twenty-five stories, only a few are worth a look:

"Rami Temporalis" by Gary Braunbeck: Joel has one of those faces, the kind anyone can trust, even a complete stranger. One day, he finds out why. Though the ending is anticlimactic considering the grand nature of what is revealed, this story involves a truly interesting philosophical idea and is exactly the kind of imaginative tale that should appear in these books.

"N0072-JK1" by Adam Corbin Fusco: I'm a sucker for stories that are done as scientific transcripts. You know that they are gradually building to something awful but you can't stop reading: the horror story in its purest form. The deeper unease, I think, comes from knowing that humans are, in fact, capable of doing terrible things in the name of research, and that maybe it isn't far-fetched at all. This one involves a study of the nature of tickling, one that leads to sinister and disturbing conclusions.

"Infliction" by John McIlveen: A delinquent father goes in search of his runaway daughter and finds that sometimes the only way to erase old scars is to create new ones.

"Around It Still the Sumac Grows" by Tom Piccirilli: A man returns to his high school after twenty years to retrieve something he left behind. Piccirilli's tales usually have a surreal quality to them, but not so much that you feel like he's blowing hot air (which is how I felt about most of the stories here.) Besides, I've revisited my old school many years later as well, and it is indeed a surreal experience.

Collections like this make me sad, this one even more so because I'm aware of the potential it had. BORDERLANDS number five is largely a waste of time. I hope the good stories get reprinted somewhere else.

Hit and miss.......2006-07-26

The book is described as Stories of Terror and Madness. Well, you can strike the 'terror' part and keep the madness. As another reviewer stated it is really full of 'huh?' stories. After completing a story I never really felt the urge to continue reading. I didn't feel like "wow, that was great I can't wait to read the next." Most of the short stories are pretty forgettable and other are really out there, such as the one that reads like notes on some medical experiment about tickling. But there are a few really great stories. Stephen King is obviously the author that keeps this book selling. But his story is only mediocre, although it does fit the very weird feeling of this book. If you really like strange stories the check this book out. This is a book that is much better for getting from the library instead of actually buying it.

Ignore the "BIG NAME" near the top of the cover.......2006-01-22

If you are buying this book because it has STEPHEN KING in huge letters, you will be disappointed. Then again, maybe not because if you've been reading his piffle for the past 7 or so years, you may like the long, drawn out, torturous story that I couldn't even finish.

Now, if you're NOT a King fan (and yes, there are many of us out here who are not afraid to admit we are no longer attracted to King's incessant "diarrhea of the keyboard"), then this is not a bad a little book and don't be scared away with the inclusion of his name. In fact, I almost didn't buy it as I figured if Mr. King was included, the rest of the stories must have been horrendous as well. I'm glad I changed my mind.

Award winning stories? A few. "Annabell", "Smooth Operator", "A Thing", "The Goat", and "All Hands" were worth the price of the book. The rest of the stories were entertaining, but as mentioned before, the "huh" factor exists too strongly in some to be even moderately entertaining. One of the worst stories in the book is a story called "The Planting" where a man urinates on a woman's buried panties and "grows" another woman, who falls in love with a monkey-thing that lives in a shack in the woods, and...oh, it's just too embarrassing to continue. But of course, not to be outdone in the "Horrible Writing" category, is Mr. King's work, "Stationary Bike". My cat has scratched out more interesting stories in his litterbox. I understand Mr. King's huge attraction is his insistence on giving us every single detail so our imaginations are put into stasis (and we don't have to - heaven forbid! - think), but this drivel is just over the top.

Since the authors claim they were inundated with manuscripts, I find it utterly deplorable they would pick some of the stories they have included herein. I'm sure they had better choices than these. (I'm not talking the boring vampire, slasher killer, child-abuse victim gone mad stories we're all so tired of reading.) And to include King's name so boldly with such a terrible contribution as what he has here...well, I guess it shows just to what depths people will plunge down in order to sell a book. For shame on the editors. They should have stuck with the lesser known authors and been proud of it.

If you're looking for something to read to scare you out of your knickers, this is not it. Entertaining, yes. Delightful, sometimes. Horrible (not horror), about 35% of the time.

But don't buy (or not buy) this book because of the KING name.

Chock full of "huh?" stories.......2006-01-04

Today's horror anthologies all seem to share one thing in common: they rely on a preponderance of "huh?" stories, where you finish the stories having no idea what you just read or why it concluded the way it did. Authors seem to think this is arty and literate, when really it's just annoying. I don't mind ambiguous endings that make you think; these are just, well, stories where you end up going "huh?" when you're finished. The only story I liked was David Schow's.

If an anthologist wants to do something cutting edge, I'd love to see a collection of understandable stories. No one does this, so you'd be cutting edge!

Desert Legends: Re-Storying the Sonoran Borderlands

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Desert Legends: Re-Storying the Sonoran Borderlands
Gary Paul Nabhan
Manufacturer: Henry Holt & Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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After the Ruins, 1906 and 2006: Rephotographing the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire

ASIN: 0805031006

Covenants: A Borderlands Novel (Borderland (Roc))

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TERRIFIC FANTASY PAGE TURNER
Excellent !
Pretty Good
aight
A fabulous fantasy adventure

Covenants: A Borderlands Novel (Borderland (Roc))
Lorna Freeman
Manufacturer: Roc
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0451459806
Release Date: 2004-05-04

Book Description

Rabbit is a trooper on the Border Guards, just another body in the King's army. But when his patrol encounters a Faena-one of the magical guardians of an uneasy ally-Rabbit is thrust into a political and magical intrigue that could start a war. Because Rabbit isn't just another trooper. He is the son of nobility-and a mage who doesn't know his own power...

Customer Reviews:

TERRIFIC FANTASY PAGE TURNER.......2007-08-18

Wow. THis is what I call state of the art fantasy fiction. A fascinating, fresh world peopled with interesting characters and a story that won't stop. Can't wait to read the next two books in the borderlands series. Kudos to the author!

Excellent !.......2007-04-15

I was thoroughly impressed with this book and the follow up, The King's Own. It took the basics of fairy tales and broadened it to be a much more complete world and reality. Lord Rabbit is endearing in his somewhat haphazard rise as a magician of his elements. This is a storyline I will definitely keep on my bookshelves to read over and over again in future years. I recommend it highly.

Pretty Good.......2007-03-05

There's a lot to like about this debut fantasy, though the book has some flaws, which I'll address below. I give it three stars, but it's really a three and a half.

First, the good stuff. The book's most obvious strength is its main character, Rabbit. It's a first person narration, and Rabbit's voice is naive, frank, wry, funny--and completely compelling. The voice, alone, makes the book worth reading. Rabbit's conflicts, both internal and external, are interesting; as a reader, I followed his adventures with great enjoyment.

I also appreciated how the author used the revelation of information to create tension in the plot. I found myself flipping back to earlier scenes, and saying to myself, "ah-ha, so that's why so-n-so did such-n-such."

The magic system is cool, and the concept of the Borderland is rich with possibility. I have no trouble believing the author will write other fun books in this world.

That said, the book has some problems.

J. Hulet's comment is right on: he/she complains that Rabbit and Co don't seem like actual soldiers. I agree that the military structure here is awfully loose. The men are constantly insubordinate to their officers and don't seem to have many duties to keep them busy. Military discipline seems nonexistent.

Freeman could have cut 30,000 words from the middle of the novel. There's loose prose all over the place, and many, many redundant scenes.

For example, one writing 'tic' I see repeated here is an action scene followed by a chatty scene in which those involved in the action scene rehash in conversation the action. Yeah, yeah, we get it: you don't have to show the scene and then tell it.

Another problem is that there are too many tertiary characters. That is, the stage is too crowded with extras that lack personality and purpose. Pointless set dressing.

'White room' scenes. This might seem to contradict my previous point, but too many of the scenes are poorly blocked (I don't know why I keep using movie terms!). The setting is often not adequately described, and the characters' positions in relationship to each other are not clear.

The plot structure is way off, especially at the beginning. There's way too much pointless wandering around before the plot gains traction and starts to move. Seriously, with the overblown wordcount and the plot problems, I wonder if Freeman's editor was asleep at the wheel.

Ordinarily, these kinds of problems would have made the book unreadable for me. Yet thanks to the compelling voice, I still enjoyed it. It's fun, and I'll consider reading the second one in the series, though I'll hope to seem some improvement.

aight.......2007-01-26

This is a good book, the style is very hard to comprehend and understand. Eventually you get used to it, overall it drags when it is not supposed to and goes through major events way to quick or just does not really acknowledge it and goes on with the story. The plot was good and that is the only reason it is getting four stars, if written a little better with more thought then yea it gets five stars.

A fabulous fantasy adventure.......2007-01-23

I picked up this book on a whim with about fifteen other books of the same genre. Two months later, most of the other fourteen books are still in the bag and I ended up heading to the mall on Boxing Day to pick up the sequel.

It's hard to pin down exactly what makes this book so engaging, but a large part of it may be due to the author's ability to avoid many of the standard fantasy pitfalls. The large cast of characters is never overwhelming, and all of them are distinct enough to be interesting in their own right and therefore memorable. Seeing everything through Rabbit's eyes means that you end up feeling very invested in the storyline, while at the same time it also means that you spend a large portion of the book having *no idea what is going on*, which is much more enjoyable than it should be. The questions are all answered in ways that make sense, the powers used never seem to veer into the godlike, and the evil characters range from the merely petty to the humanly greedy to the sadistically deranged. Funny as all heck, too.

I guess that the reason this book is so enjoyable all comes down to the likeability of Rabbit himself. It's not that everyone likes him, and certainly he's not the typical hero type, but rather that there is a strong current of affection for him that runs through the book and you end up sharing in it. The guy needs a keeper, really, and there are several characters in the book who seem to feel the same way. It's hard not to feel fond of a character whose insistence on being 'just a horse soldier' passes all reasonable limits fairly early on, just as it's hard not to feel fond of a world where the human invaders lost the war but the magical residents couldn't stop arguing amongst themselves long enough to kick them out.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who enjoys fantasy, fiction of the 'men-with-powers' type, humorous POV, strong friendships, quests, fallible narrators, and generally excellent writing. (In other words, everyone. Everyone should read this book.)

meXicana Encounters: The Making of Social Identities on the Borderlands (American Crossroads, 12)

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A vital contribution to studies of the border, gender and the mass media

meXicana Encounters: The Making of Social Identities on the Borderlands (American Crossroads, 12)
Rosa Linda Fregoso
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Mexico | Americas | History | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0520238907

Book Description

meXicana Encounters charts the dynamic and contradictory representation of Mexicanas and Chicanas in culture. Rosa Linda Fregoso's deft analysis of the cultural practices and symbolic forms that shape social identities takes her across a wide and varied terrain. Among the subjects she considers are the recent murders and disappearances of women in Ciudad Juárez; transborder feminist texts that deal with private, domestic forms of violence; how films like John Sayles's Lone Star re-center white masculinity; and the significance of la familia to the identity of Chicanas/os and how it can subordinate gender and sexuality to masculinity and heterosexual roles. Fregoso's self-reflexive approach to cultural politics embraces the movement for social justice and offers new insights into the ways that racial and gender differences are inscribed in cultural practices.

Customer Reviews:

A vital contribution to studies of the border, gender and the mass media.......2005-11-03

The reader accompanies Fregoso on a passionate stream of close analysis and brilliant social critique. She reviews the ways that movies, fiction, and other cultural products continue to mark the lives of women on the border with oppresive myths of national and personal identity. Her cultural criticism covers, but is not limited to, mainstream movie portrayals of Chicana swomen, Mexican and American coverage of the Ciudad Juarez feminicides and some Chicano concepts of family and manhood. Fregoso is an important voice in the fields of both gender studies/women studies, and media studies, but this is just her standpoint, her expertise. The implications of her work ripple throughout all of contemporary critical theory.

Asian Borderlands: The Transformation of Qing China's Yunnan Frontier

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Asian Borderlands: The Transformation of Qing China's Yunnan Frontier
C. Patterson Giersch
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Asia | History | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0674021711

Book Description

C. Patterson Giersch provides a groundbreaking challenge to the China-centered narrative of the Qing conquest through comparative frontier history and a pioneering use of indigenous sources. He focuses on the Tai domains of China's Yunnan frontier, part of the politically fluid borderlands, where local, indigenous leaders were crucial actors in an arena of imperial rivalry.

Patterns of acculturation were multi-directional. Both Qing and Tai created a hybrid frontier government that was tested as Burma and Siam extended influence into the region. As Qing and Chinese migrants gained greater political and economic control in borderland communities, indigenes adopted select Chinese ways. Chinese language was useful for trade, and relations with imperial officials were eased by wearing the queue and donning imperial robes. But indigenous culture and livelihoods persisted, and Tai aristocrats adopted rituals and symbols of the Burmese and Siamese courts.

Qing conquest and Chinese migration did not lead to simple patterns of incorporation and assimilation. Chinese economic and cultural influences were profound, but did not entirely undermine indigenous practices. These legacies, which would shape and complicate twentieth-century Chinese state building, hold an important key to understanding modern China.

Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine

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russian mindset - refuses to see lush ukrainian culture
Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine
misconcept
Great History
A Truely Novel History

Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine
Anna Reid
Manufacturer: Westview Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0813337925

Book Description

Combines historical research with travel and interviews in Ukraine to expose layer after layer of myth and propaganda that wrap this divided land

This vivid book tells the story of Ukraine by taking the reader there. Talking to peasants and politicians, rabbis and racketeers, dissidents and paramilitaries, survivors of Stalin's famine and of Nazi labor camps, Anna Reid charts Ukraine's tragic past and explores its struggle to build a national future.

Customer Reviews:

russian mindset - refuses to see lush ukrainian culture.......2007-09-08

There are certainly connections between russian and ukrainian culture. But those of us who have gone to ukrainian schools know well how authorites can suppress the total picture of a culture. Get a taste of the beauty of Ukraine from this book, but be open to more and accurate info as well. Buy more books on Ukraine!

Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine.......2007-07-21

Very complete. Great timeline in front of text so one can keep track of which Polish or Russian invasion the writer is explaining. HOWEVER, it needs extra chapters to explain the last 10 years of major change in Ukraine.

misconcept.......2007-05-09

First of all, Ukranians and Russians is one nation. And Ukraina is a modern name for the present territory of this country, since the establishement of the USSR followed by the October revolution in 1917.
For centures before that and after reunification with Russia some 350 years ago that part of Russia was called Little Russia. History of Ukraine is a sad history of Russia with Kiev to be the first capital of old Russia going back to 5th century and was always called as mother of all other Russian cities.Still today Kievo-Pechorskaya Lavra,( set of orthodox churches and a monastrye) the heart of Kiev belongs to Russian Orthodox Church. Kiev Russia(old name of Russia) being a rich and strategically well located country was an attraction for tatars and polish. This is where the first split of Russia as a country comes from. Part of Ukraine being under Poland for quite a time turned into a source for separatism for some of people of this region, especially in the western part of Ukraine.
There is little spoken about it today, but eastern parts of modern Ukraine and down very south (Crimea) never were under polish ruling, and in fact are more Russians than Ukranians, if to use modern terminology. Existing borders of Ukraine been made artificcially due to complex history of Russia, the most "outstanding" act was a gift of Khrushev(leader of USSR) from Russian Federation to Ukraine in the mid of last century. On celebration of 300 years of reunification of Ukraine with Russia, Crimea`s vast land was taken from Russian Federation borders under republic Ukraine borders, as a gift prooving we are together for ever.
And the split up in 1991 had more economical reasons than national, due to weak leadership of Gorbachev, which brougth the USSR on the edge of economical, political and moral collapse. Everybody was running away from that muddle.
Bur history has no way backward, what is done-is done. But in all time it has to be respected. What happens now: either because of little knowledge or to proove the split up, we see that some are trying to write " a new history of Ukraine".
I agree with F. Alcala comment, that Russia and Ukraine will be together in the future with one one remark: we were not for 350 years together, this is the date of reunification of Russia and what is called Ukraina today, but long before that we started as one country in Kiev Russia, later invaded by the neighbours around, what resulted the split up before that reunification took place 350 years ago.
Nice remarks from F.Alcala about other countries.
I wonder if Mrs Anna Reid next book will be about USA? Is she going to defend the idea of setting up Indians Country on the territory of USA,
demandig a contribution from UK for occupying Indians lands for centuries and genocide to indian people?

Great History.......2007-01-10

While it wasn't exactly what I was looking for, this book gave a wonderful condensed history of the Ukraine. This small country has gone through so many changes, and been under so many other countries leadership, finally winning their independance. It makes you appreciate our own history.

A Truely Novel History.......2007-01-04

Never would I have thought that a history could be so enthralling. This work reads like a fine novel. The author has extensively researched her subject. The book was read in preparation for a visit to the Ukraine. Having read Borderland provided a basis for understanding the contempory politics and attitudes of the country whose National anthem begins with "Hope in the Ukraine is not yet dead."!!! A must read for anyone interested in the Ukraine or the post USSR conditions of previous soviet border states.

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