{"product_id":"9781324037040","title":"The Edge of the Plain: How Borders Make and Break Our World","description":"\u003cstrong\u003eA wide-ranging journey through the history of borders and an exploration of their role in shaping our world today.\u003c\/strong\u003e\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","brand":"Norton, W. W. \u0026 Company, Inc.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47042161180912,"sku":"9781324037040","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781324037040_p0.jpg?v=1763707796","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781324037040","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}