Following the border formed by the Rio Grande and moving cross-country to the Pacific Ocean, Frontera is a lavishly illustrated book that offers a comprehensive examination of the nearly two thousand-mile border shared by the United States and Mexico. The region has a reputation for being a dangerous place, with US Border Patrol and Mexican authorities playing cat and mouse with smugglers and undocumented migrants, and with drug cartels inflicting unspeakable violence on the region. Frontera takes an unblinking look at those dangers, but it goes beyond stereotypes and offers the reader vivid portraits of the beauty and complexity of the area—its history, its contemporary attractions, its rich cultural life. Moving through thirty-eight municipalities on the Mexican side and twenty-four counties in the US, Frontera includes maps, key cities, points of interest, border crossings, festivals, local cuisines, and more, along with analyses of local politics and security issues. Despite its troubles, the US-Mexico border is a beautiful place, the home of welcoming and warm people. It is a land of contrasts—austere landscapes and lush oases, thunderstorms and rainbows in the desert, robust industry and ghost towns, great wealth and aching poverty. Frontera is both a feast for the eyes and an encyclopedic reference that offers readers a clear-eyed perspective on a subject of critical importance to the United States and its southern neighbor.
