I. William Zartman's edited volume offers an empirically rich and stimulating exploration of the impact that borderlands have upon the lived experiences of local communities. The collection draws upon strong descriptive case studies spanning multiple continents and a number of historical periods.

Zartman makes a valiant attempt to provide a thematic core to the collection. He identifies three (relatively amorphous) models of border relations around which to organize consideration of the impacts that borderlands have upon local societal experiences. The black-and-white model centers upon the reflection of a clear distinction between the populations on each side of a mutually observed border. Such borderlands are often best exemplified by heavily fortified and defended borders—such as those in Cyprus and on the Korean Peninsula. The grey model, by contrast, is best reflected in borderlands where populations are heavily mixed on both sides of any formal dividing line. Here, the U.S.-Mexican and German-French borders are exemplary of the broader set of cases. Finally, Zartman offers a third category of more ambiguous types of borderlands. This includes the buffered model, in which two populations are separated by a third, distinct cultural group—here, the placement of Serbs between Croats and Ottoman Muslims is the working example. This third category also includes the spotty model, in which one cultural group lives in sporadic ghettos within the larger cultural population—such as has been observed historically with Jewish populations in Europe and African-American populations in the United States. The third category is completed by the discussion of the layered model, in which one cultural group dominates the other, such as in apartheid South Africa or the West Bank.

One great value of this collection is the breadth of expertise assembled by the editor. This is reflected in terms of the range of empirical examples discussed, as well as the multitude of theoretical and methodological treatments of this key topic by the contributors. Case studies span multiple continents: Harriett Romo and Raquel L. Marquez in North America, Rachel S. Havrelock in the Middle East, and George Gavrilis in the Balkan region of Eastern Europe. Case studies also span millennia: Miroslav Barta in Ancient Egypt, Ipek K. Yosmaoglu in Ottoman Macedonia, and David Stea, Jamie Zech, and Melissa Gray on the modern-day U.S.-Mexican border. Despite this breadth and variety, the editor and contributors do an excellent job of ensuring at least a minimal level of synergy among the volume's component parts. This is thanks, in part, to the editor's chosen thematic core but also to the authors' efforts to reflect upon one another's contributions and to ensure a return to the editor's typologies—demonstrated brilliantly by James G. Schryver's employment of the black-and-white model to detail populations within Frankish Cyprus.

The second notable strength of the volume is that it tackles a series of tough definitional and conceptual debates head-on. The authors should be applauded for not shying away from exploring a number of heavily contested notions, including that of center-periphery relations (such as in Judith Vorrath's chapter on state–society relations in African borderlands), asymmetric reliance upon border tourism (as in the case of Stea, Zech, and Gray's chapter on the variety of migrant populations crossing the US-Mexican border), and the informal guarding of historical borders to manage and protect illicit smuggling practices (as in the case of Isa Blumi's chapter comparing Albania and Yemen).

One way in which the breadth of coverage proves detrimental, however, is in the nagging sense by the reader that, ultimately, cases are not being tested comparatively. The central spine is a typology, but not one that leads to the derivation of consistent hypotheses that can be subjected to robust, comparative testing. Each chapter carries with it considerable internal validity. Lacking, however, is a greater sense of each contribution's external validity. To what extent can we truly extrapolate from the general conclusions of these quite distinct case studies? Zartman's concluding chapter takes a stab at providing a policy-relevant summary of what has come before, but this really serves as little more than a recap of the wide range of experiences and meanings uncovered in the preceding pages. One final effort to bring the chapters together by inferring general patterns or expectations would perhaps have enhanced the contribution that the volume makes to the social science disciplines it is surely targeting—from anthropology to law, sociology to history, political science to psychology.

In a bid to enhance the volume's contribution, and given the editor's solid track record of research into the management of conflict, it might have been worthwhile to have explored a series of hypotheses regarding the expected relationship between the three patterns of borderland populations and the likelihood of the emergence, duration, and management of various forms of violent conflict. Such a study spanning broad temporal and spatial domains could have made a more concrete contribution to the international relations literature, for instance, though, of course, this could have had the effect of diminishing its wider, cross-disciplinary appeal.

The volume will appeal to researchers from a wide variety of disciplinary backgrounds with a shared interest in the politics, culture, laws, and history of borders. It is likely to have slightly less appeal for teaching purposes. There are relatively few classes—at the undergraduate or graduate level—that tackle very specific problems related to borderlands. It is conceivable, however, that individual elements of this volume would find their way on to reading lists and syllabi for classes on nationalism, the law and politics of borders, territory and conflict, and a series of country or region-specific topics.

Overall, then, Zartman's is a volume of empirically rich contributions that collectively offer significant insight into a range of the most controversial and intractable cross-border and intraborderland competitions of historical and contemporary experience. While it could have gone further to provide a more explanatory frame for understanding the broader range of contemporary border struggles, it successfully achieves its initial goal: to provide a descriptive frame by which to draw crucial distinctions among the experiences of communities within a variety of types of borderlands.