What is a border? In “The Edge of the Plain,” James Crawford floats a number of theories. Borders, he writes, are “wellsprings of memory.” A border can be “a story of identity” or a ...

But the promise of a new life on American soil allowed these Black bodies to maintain a flicker of hope. I happened to be in San Antonio, about 150 miles from Del Rio, the border town between the ...

Scottish historian James Crawford’s The Edge of the Plain examines, in an erudite and engaging fashion, a select number of borders around the world, both geographical and notional.