The Borderlands of the American and Canadian Wests is the first collection of interdisciplinary essays bringing together scholars from both sides of the forty-ninth parallel to examine life in a transboundary region. The result is a text that reveals the diversity, difficulties, and fortunes of this increasingly powerful but little-understood part of the North American West. Contributions by historians, geographers, anthropologists, and scholars of criminal justice and environmental studies provide a comprehensive picture of the history of the borderlands region of the western United States and Canada.

The Borderlands of the American and Canadian Wests is divided into six parts: Defining the Region, Colonizing the Frontier, Farming and Other Labor Interactions, the Borderlands as a Refuge in the Nineteenth Century, the Borderlands as a Refuge in the Twentieth Century, and Natural Resources and Conservation along the Border. Topics include the borderlands’ environment; its aboriginal and gender history; frontier interactions and comparisons; agricultural and labor relations; tourism; the region as a refuge for Mormons, far-right groups, and Vietnam War resisters; and conservation and natural resources. These areas show how the history and geography of the borderlands region has been transboundary, multidimensional, and unique within North America.

Sterling Evans is an associate professor of history at Brandon University in Manitoba. He is the author of The Green Republic: A Conservation History of Costa Rica and the editor of American Indians in American History, 1870–2001: A Companion Reader.

“Historian Sterling Evans has served academia well by orchestrating this important edited collection that announces a recent (re)awakening of the western U.S.-Canadian borderlands field. The carefully constructed volume succeeds in gathering together what Evans refers to as a ‘scattered literature’ and encourages a new self-consciousness among its practitioners. . . . It is hard to imagine any work in western transborder U.S.-Canadian history going forward without consulting the extensive multi-topic bibliographies compiled by Evans.”—Molly P. Rozum, Montana: The Magazine of Western History

“Rarely would one think in terms of borderland studies and the 49th parallel—that is, until this collection of essays written by scholars, many of them young academics, in a variety of fields. This work will cause many scholars to revise their definition of the region. . . . [E]xceptional suggested readings accompany each section.”—Choice

“The quality of research and writing throughout is consistently higher than in many anthologies and no doubt reflects the vitality of the emerging field, as well as Sterling Evans’s discrimination as editor. . . . The Borderlands of the American and Canadian Wests reveals Canada-U.S. borderlands studies to be an exciting field that will surely expand as scholars of the West(s) continue to recognize the importance of transnational perspectives.”—Joshua Paddison, Nebraska History

"This book is an extremely helpful contribution to the study of the North American West. If you are attempting to understand most any aspect of this broad theme, you are cheating yourself if you do not have it in hand."—Charles C. Chester, Oregon Historical Quarterly