There's something fascinating about border towns. Who hasn't crossed the line into another state to buy fireworks, gamble, or even to get married? Here are border towns with names as unique as the places themselves, names that bridge the boundaries.
Robert D. Temple brings you a quirky, fascinating, and wholly entertaining look at more than eighty North American border towns in Edge Effects. With an adventurer's heart and a historian's keen eye, Temple explores life on the edge and how these places have made their place in history. There's big-city Mexicali and empty-quarter Idavada, idyllic Vir-Mar Beach and whiskey-soaked Mondak. Then there's prairie-bleak Alsask, mountain-high Wyocolo, and palmy Florala. And who could forget Texarkana?
Along with finding these towns in the first place comes adventure in exploring them, by highway, four-wheel-drive, boots, and kayak, and in encountering memorable locals: historians, farmers, waitresses, cops, forest rangers, railroaders, and ne'er-do-wells. But even more, these places lead us to investigate concepts of borders, boundaries, frontiers, margins, and marginality, as well as survey lines, battle lines, picket lines, and color lines.
Edge Effects brilliantly examines how frontiers enrich cultures and boundaries define them. But more importantly, it reveals how edges shape local history-and our lives.
Robert Temple is visiting professor of the history and philosophy of science at Tsinghua University in Beijing; fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society; member of the Egypt Exploration Society, Royal Historical Society, Institute of Classical Studies, and the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies; and visiting research fellow of the University of the Aegean in Greece. He is the author of 10 books, including The Sirius Mystery and The Genius of China. He wrote, produced, and presented the documentary film Descent into Hell, based upon his book, Oracles of the Dead, for National Geographic Channel. His translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh was staged at the Royal National Theatre in London in 1993. He resides in England with his wife, Olivia. They are joint translators of Aesop: The Complete Fables.