For
decades as a History Professor at Laurentian
University, Graeme Mount taught a course on global
history during the 20th century. Lesson preparation
and research took him to all continents except
Antarctica, and he pursued a lifelong interest in
international borders. Most border crossings were
uneventful, others highly memorable, as were the
occasions when he approached, but did not actually
cross, borders. These pages recount his most
noteworthy adventures at, and along, international
borders.
Borders
in question include the one between Canada and the
United States; borders of the former Yugoslavia in
1989 with Albania and Romania; certain Latin American
borders; the inter-German border three months before
the opening of the Berlin Wall; the border between
Austria and Hungary in August 1989, between the
removal of the physical Iron Curtain between those
two countries and the opening of the border so that
East Germans could circumvent the Berlin Wall and
drive to West Germany; the Inter-Irish border during
the IRA campaign against British rule; Zimbabwe's
border with Mozambique in 1990, after Zimbabwean
forces intervened in Mozambique's civil war; North
Korea's borders with South Korea (1999) and China
(2006); and the maritime boundaries of Trinidad and
Tobago (one country despite the double name) and both
Venezuela and Barbados.
The
stories are timely. Today, most European countries
have eliminated border controls, and limited rail
service between South Korea and North Korea has
resumed for the first time since partition of the
Korean peninsula in 1945. By contrast, the United
States is tightening its border controls, insisting
on more and more documentation and identification,
even from citizens of its NAFTA partners, Canada and
Mexico. Borders, border controls, and the absence of
border controls have repercussions on the lives of
ordinary people. Some of these repercussions are
discussed here in a lively, often humorous, manner.
Table of Contents
GRAEME
S. MOUNT, Ph.D., has taught at Laurentian University,
Sudbury, Ontario, since 1969. Author of thirteen
books, he has written extensively on U.S./Canada
relations. Of those, Black Rose Books has published Chile
and the Nazis (2002), The
Diplomacy of War: The Case of Korea (2004), and 895
Days That Changed the World: The Presidency of Gerald
R. Ford (2005).
208
pages, 5.5x8.5, 32-page photo essay, bibliography,
index
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-55164-324-3 $19.99
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-55164-325-0 $48.99
Cultural Studies/History
November
2008
