The Hidden Frontier

This award-winning classic in the study of ethnicity, identity, and nation-building has a new introduction (on which Eric Wolf collaborated near the end of his life) that shows the continuing validity of the book’s innovative approach to ethnography, ecology, culture, and politics. The authors investigated two Alpine villages—the German-speaking community of St. Felix and Romance-speaking Tret—only a mile apart in the same mountain valley.

This book follows the social, economic and demographic transformations of the Alpine area from the late Middle Ages. Its aim is to reassess the image of the upland community which emerges from the work of historians, geographers and social anthropologists. The book therefore deals at length with such problems as the causes and consequences of emigration and patterns of marriage and inheritance in favouring or hampering the adjustments of local populations to changing economic or ecological circumstances, and tackles the vexed question of the relative importance of cultural and environmental factors in shaping family forms and community structures. Although its foundation lies in a long period of anthropological fieldwork conducted in an Alpine community, Upland Communities relies on the methods and conceptual tools of historical demography. Combined with a long-term historical perspective, its broad comparative approach unveils an unexpected diversity in regional and spatial demographic patterns and questions a number of deep-rooted but ultimately misleading notions concerning mountain society and its alleged backwardness in the past.

The north-eastern frontier of the Roman Empire - one of the great gaps in modern knowledge of the ancient world - has long eluded research. It has defied systematic exploration and been insulated against all but passing survey by wars, instability, political sensitivities, language, and the region's wild, remote mountains, mostly accessible only on horseback or on foot. Its path lay across eastern Turkey, following the Euphrates valley northwards from Syria, through gorges and across great ranges, and passing over the Pontic Alps to reach the further shores of the Black Sea. Vespasian established Rome's frontier against Armenia half a century before Hadrian's Wall. Five times as long, and climbing seven times as high, it was garrisoned ultimately by four legions and a large auxiliary army, stationed in intermediate forts linked by military roads. The two volumes of East of Asia Minor: Rome's Hidden Frontier - based on research, field work conducted largely on foot, and new discoveries - document the topography, monuments, inscriptions, and sighted coins of the frontier, looking in detail at strategic roads, bridges, forts, watch and signalling systems, and navigation of the Euphrates itself. Study of the terrain provides a foundation for interpreting the literary and epigraphic evidence for the frontier and its garrisons. Military activity, which extended to the Caucasus and the Caspian, is placed in the context of climate, geography, and inter-regional trade routes. 28 colour maps and over 350 photographs, plans, and travellers' sketches not only document the history of eastern Turkey as a frontier region of the Roman empire, but also reveal an ancient way of life, still preserved during the 1960s and 1970s, but now almost obliterated by the developments of the modern world.

Originally published in 1994, this book considers one of the enduring themes of social science. How is a national identity forged and sustained? How does it change over time? Who is included in the body politic and who is socially excluded? How do the established population, opinion-makers and politicians react to more marginal people, including long-spurned minorities and recent migrants? This original analysis shows how the British as a people are constantly defined and redefined through their interactions with several ‘frontiers of identity’, namely Celts, expatriates, Americans, Europeans, citizens of the Commonwealth and more crucially with ‘aliens’. The alien-British relationship is particularly loaded with uneasiness, aversion and hostility. ‘Aliens’ a category created by what the author calls ‘the frontier guards’ of British identity, are frequently deported or detained. Their sanctuaries are invaded, their legal and humanitarian claims for asylum minutely examined and often denied. This searching exploration of these processes shows how the meaning of who one is depends crucially on who one rejects. Drawing on a wealth of historical scholarship, research compiled at the time of the original publication and contemporary social theory and now reissued with a new Preface this book exposes the unstated assumptions and hidden meanings in the relationship between the ‘British’ and ‘the others'. It uncovers how the British and their rulers seek to reshape their national identity in a difficult period of post-imperial adjustment, relative economic decline and the European integration of the 1990s. The book will be of use to students of sociology, politics, history and European studies.

JAMES BOND FAQ: ALL THAT'S LEFT TO KNOW ABOUT EVERYONE'S FAVORITE SUPERSPY

A related collection of short stories, incidents and anecdotes from my job as Senior Stardrive Tech on the "Lupine." All true, of course,

Borders are where wars start, as Primo Levi once wrote. But they are also bridges - that is, sites for ongoing cultural exchange. Anyone studying how nations and states maintain distinct identities while adapting to new ideas and experiences knows that borders provide particularly revealing windows for the analysis of 'self' and 'other'. In representing invisible demarcations between nations and peoples who may have much or very little in common, borders exert a powerful influence and define how people think as well as what they do. Without borders, whether physical or symbolic, nationalism could not exist, nor could borders exist without nationalism. Surprisingly, there have been very few systematic or concerted efforts to review the experiences of nation and state at the local level of borders. Drawing on examples from the US and Mexico, Northern Ireland, Israel and Palestine, Spain and Morocco, as well as various parts of Southeast Asia and Africa, this timely book offers a comparative perspective on culture at state boundaries. The authors examine the role of the state, ethnicity, transnationalism, border symbols, rituals and identity in an effort to understand how nationalism informs attitudes and behaviour at local, national and international levels. Soldiers, customs agents, smugglers, tourists, athletes, shoppers, and prostitutes all provide telling insights into the power relations of everyday life and what these relations say about borders. This overview of the importance of borders to the construction of identity and culture will be an essential text for students and scholars in anthropology, sociology, political science, geography, nationalism and immigration studies.