The Imaginary Line: A History of the United States and Mexican Boundary Survey, 1848-1857

The line dividing the United States and Mexico is invisible, “imaginary,” drawn through shifting sands and changeable rivers. The economic, social, and political issues surrounding this line, however, are all too real, and the line snakes its way through a history of conflict, through questions of definition, maps and claims of ownership, and personal and political gerrymandering.

In The Imaginary Line: A History of the United States and Mexican Boundary Survey, 1848–1857, Joseph Richard Wer...