Brandon Morgan’s book offers a cogent analysis of social and political conflicts along the U.S.–Mexico border at the turn of the twentieth century, especially the role that physical violence played in nation building. His work adds to the scholarly literature by telling the story of intermittent efforts to develop the Lower Mimbres Valley in southern New Mexico and neighboring communities in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Morgan explores themes of state formation, culture, identity, and collective memory, drawing extensively on archives from both countries in English and Spanish. In a crowded field of study, the author has developed a readable and well-researched work that borderlands scholars and students will welcome.
Raid and Reconciliation opens with consideration of collective memory in the region. In 1961, organizers prepared to inaugurate the Pancho Villa State Park near the site where in 1916 the famed Mexican revolutionary attacked Columbus, New Mexico. Not everyone was pleased with the festivities. The fulcrum of public opinion for the park was the memory of Villa himself. Many residents remembered him as a violent bandit who killed innocent people. Others saw him in more heroic terms, or at least believed Villa’s profile would attract tourists to the area. Morgan underscores how this tension over Villa encapsulated so much of the region’s history before and after his arrival in Columbus.
The book goes back to the 1880s to contextualize historical processes of political violence and economic development. Morgan examines the state-building projects underway in both the U.S. and Mexico, how local actors embodied these activities, the failures that occurred, and what these failures of modernization meant to the communities involved. He writes: “The delineation of national identities at the margins of territorial boundaries of national states also exacts a steep price… where large-scale capitalist development never took hold in ways its staunchest advocates had hoped, the violence of borders… is laid bare” (5). Morgan further explains how, once Mexicans and U.S. Americans removed Indigenous groups, the emergent states carried out a cultural erasure that transformed local social space. They formed relationships that reconfigured the use of violence, turning it towards new groups of people.
The author excels at constructing a narrative that ties together stories from both sides of the border and at both local and regional levels. He also highlights the economic, political, and cultural connections that existed between places such as La Ascensión and Colonia Díaz, Chihuahua, on the one hand, and Deming, Palomas, and Columbus, New Mexico, on the other. By treating this history as a regional story, Morgan uncovers the continuities that shaped these places as neighbors with a shared identity. For instance, hopes of building a railroad from southern Mexico to Deming and onward to other parts in the United States was one of the common denominators that animated local boosters. Morgan also explores the history of Mormons in the region, which adds another rich layer of detail to the story. However, one surprising element is that although Pancho Villa figures prominently in many parts of the book, he disappears for a notable period from the narrative. From pages 74 to 111 not a single mention is made of him. It left this reader wondering what Villa had been doing in those gaps.
Raid and Reconciliation expands our understanding of state formation at the peripheries of Mexico and the United States. Morgan writes a truly “borderland” book enmeshed in the regional histories of both countries. The writing style is approachable for non-specialists, while the maps and images that are included add welcomed visual qualities to the narrative. It will serve as an excellent text in most graduate seminars covering the field of Borderlands History.
