Article's Critique 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Article's Critique 2 - Essay Example However, Anna M. Miller maintains a different perspective of the sustainability of the various alternatives base on the potential benefits and costs they would impose on the people. Nonetheless, the validity of the authors view on the much-required reforms in the health care sector at the time is debatable. The main purpose of Millers article ‘Health Care Reform: Clarifying the Concepts is to address the financial issues that relate to the health care reform. In the article, the author primarily describes the various options conceptualized by special interest groups and policymakers (Miller, 1993). Effecting a meaningful reform in the health care sector require a prudent consideration of the different financial strategies to implementing various reform options as discussed at length in the article. Most often, in the application of individual insights and the maintenance of mutual interest, we are prompted to perceive things differently. In connection with the reforms, it is the viewpoint of the author that the available financial reform strategies are oversimplified with an intention of exploring their basics. Maybe or maybe not. The issue of the options being oversimplified in the article is the authors belief that may not be the case for the neutral reader. The intricacy of th e strategies is maintained when the little distinction between the options is made, and we only find that it is difficult to tell the likely better direction one should take. Millers intention in writing the article was to reveal how challenging it was to implement the inevitable reforms in health care. The authors intention to contrast the push for basic reforms and incremental changes, as advocated for by different forces, can be established with ease. It is the authors belief that implementing any changes in the health sector required the political goodwill of the policymakers (Miller, 1993).

The decline of women's rights in the Muslim world Essay

The decline of women's rights in the Muslim world - Essay Example Certainly, the world has seen the latter of the two in the news more than the predominantly peaceful observers of the religion. One of the most questionable practices of Islam is the requiring of women to cover their bodies head to toe as to not attract a man’s attention, thus causing him to break one of Allah’s laws. This practice is most usually not just done to behave in a religiously moral manner, but has actually become mandatory by law in many Islamic countries. Women who do not practice this tradition are often punished harshly. Similarly, the Islamic forms of government enforce the death penalty on women who have, in their eyes, committed adultery. The punishment for this can include the horrific and agonizing practice of being stoned to death. With this, the extremists of Islam who have managed to reform governments into Islamic practices and enforcement with a desire to make an example of anyone who contradicts the Islamic way and its government. The government-supported Islamic regimes do not allow for any sort of deviation or differing opinion in regards to faith. Today, marriage within the Islamic faith is solidified by a contract. Though the marriage contract stipulates the need for an exchange of good treatment between a husband and wife, the governments which make Islamic principle law allow for few rights of woman and total right to men. It is also not unheard of for a woman who has committed adultery to be sent away to what are known as ‘rape camps’. Within the past few years, groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have declared rape a war crime and certainly the hosting of rape camps. One of the perks to being male and Islamic is the acceptance of polygamy. Men in Islam can have multiple wives, but the inverse is not true. Additionally, the Islamic faith encourages along the extremely

Sacrament of marriage Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Sacrament of marriage - Essay Example This concerns the establishment of the relations among the people involved in the union, as well as, the attribution of the relationship to the purpose of God in the individual lives of the people2. Thus, from the catholic cannons, marriage is a sacrament between baptized people joined in union at the confines of the church doctrines. It constitutes the unbreakable bond of love between Christ and the people. Thus, like the other sacraments, the sacrament of marriage is a symbol to reveal the Lord Jesus, facilitate the divine life, and love to the people. The twentieth century saw the evolution of the theology of marriage within the developments of the church, begging with the incorporations established by Pope Pius XI in 930, and passing through to the Second Vatican Council and Pope Paul VI. The culmination was the unfolding of the writings on the insights of Pope John Paul II. The church drifted from the juridical presentation of marriage to adopt church pronouncements that personalized the duties and rights of marriage, to present it as a presentation for availing conjugal love between the spouses3. The Vatican and Cannon Law explains the definition of marriage as an intimate, exclusive, indissoluble communion of love and life shared by man and woman as a fulfillment to the design established by the Creator of their own good and procreation. This covenant entails joining two baptized persons, raising the dignity of the sacrament. Historical development ranges back to the initial establishments about the promiscuity of man, which instituted the need to develop religious cannons to streamline the practice of marriage4. The responsibilities associated also contributed to the establishment of the divine union, as practice of monogamy became the preaching from the church5. Thus, current establishments and practices in the sacrament of marriage have evolved

Project Management Capstone - Schedule, Budget, and Controls Assignment

Project Management Capstone - Schedule, Budget, and Controls - Assignment Example A budget calendar is a form of plan that is used to enhance timely and comprehensive implementation of the numerous actions of the budget. Formulation of a schedule for the procedures and steps that will be followed in each phase of the process of developing the budget is planned for in the budget calendar (Spofford & Savov, 1999). In addition, the participants of budget development, as well as, their duties are defined in the budget calendar. The budget calendar also keeps the actions that are required by law on track (Spofford & Savov, 1999). It is in the budget calendar that decisions of goals based on the organization’s long term vision and company needs are made. Also, decision on the long term goals, based on revenue allocation and evaluation will be made using the budget calendar. Analysis and review of the budget, adoption of the budget, as well as execution of the budget are carried out through the budget calendar (Spofford & Savov, 1999). Secondly, a revenue forecasting model can be used as a tool for schedule and budget development. This will involve cost and investment estimations, applicable discount rate to account for risk and revenue forecasts, which should be made so as to determine the potential value of new products (McIntyre, 2013). Using the revenue forecasting model, the current market share can be obtained by ensuring that company’s customer base is multiplied by total penetration, multiplied by the share of penetration of the product, multiplied by the unit price of the product, multiplied by the number of units that will is sold per the year (McIntyre, 2013). Given that performance budgeting is the most ideal type budgeting and scheduling for this project, which focuses on actual or projected results, budget decisions will be shifted from inputs to outcomes. Analytic tools can also be used to develop both the schedule and the budget because such tools empower those

The Religious Traditions of Buddhism and Confucianism Essay Example for Free

The Religious Traditions of Buddhism and Confucianism Essay No other force in our collective history is as influential in shaping our world as religion has been. It is a force that continues to define and redefine the world as we know it. Nations and countries have been established and destroyed all in the name of religion. Political lines are being redrawn even as we speak with religion as the main weapon of choice. No other force can affect people and compel them to action as much as religion does. It keeps followers together even while it keeps people of different faith out. It is source of cohesion and conflict at the same time (Cristi, 2001, p. 223) People who would not normally use force on another will gladly fight in the name of faith. A call to arms in the name of religion is the best way to assemble an army, fueled with righteous anger against the perceived enemy. Most, if not all civil wars have been fought in the name of religion. The enduring conflict in Northern Ireland between Catholics and Protestant, as well as the violence of Buddhists in Sri Lanka against the Hindu Tamil proves such a point. For all its awesome power, the exact nature of religion remains shrouded in history. Some scholars believe that religion arose from man’s necessity to make sense of living, and his compelling need to understand the mysteries of life. (Hume 24) Over the years, religion has come to be defined as an organized system of practices structured around some supernatural or divine belief. Religion is faith practiced in the context of reality. They are rules that guide certain kind of faith or belief. (Derrida Vattimo 6) Most cultures that exist in the world today are greatly influenced by the predominant religion of their respective places. The most common manifestations of religion can be seen through prayers, rites, and traditions that certain religious denominations practice. The most dominant religions of the world include Catholicism, Islam, Jew, and Hinduism. Other religions such as Protestantism are offshoots of Catholicism. Some, like Confucianism and Theravada Buddhism remain contentious. Some regard the two as religion, while others argue otherwise. The question is how did others came to be recognized as religions while others remain ambiguous? How do we make the distinction between religion and religious traditions? This paper argues that while Confucianism and Theravada Buddhism may not be religion, they are nevertheless religious traditions by virtue of their organized and specific rules of behavior. Theravada Buddhism is the dominant school of Buddhism. The two major schools of Buddhism that emerged from Buddha’s teachings are simply different representations of the same core principles. At first it may seem contradictory that a philosophy that espouses non-violence and universal tolerance will have a division. However, there exists neither conflict nor competition within these two main schools and the schools that followed after; the schools are more of a reflection of the place, time, and circumstance where Buddhism grew and became a way of life. Because cultures and histories differ, our perspectives on Buddha’s teachings can differ as well. (Gyatso 113) The emphasis of Theravada Buddhism is on individual attainment of nirvana, as opposed to enlightenment for all as advocated by Mahayana. Mahayana believes that Buddhists should not just be concerned about their own enlightenment, but aim to enlighten others even if it means sacrificing their own (Gyatso 168). The Mahayana form has more â€Å"religious† conventions, including worship or veneration Buddha and other divine beings. They also venerate sacred objects and icons and follow certain religious rituals. Theravada Buddhists, as an offshoot of their beliefs do not have the same features of the Mahayana. The â€Å"selfish† orientation and the unadorned nature of Theravada Buddhism perpetuate the perception of a non-religion. However, it should be said that apart from this fundamental difference, these two major schools adhere to basically the same principles. (Gyatso 170). For purposes of clarity, Buddhism, as discussed here refers to Theravada Buddhism because it is the school that is most often the target of â€Å"religious† debate. Buddhism has more close to 400 millions of followers worldwide. Buddhists ascribe to certain ways of living and behaviors that are unique to their faith. The main debate whether Buddhism is a religion or not stems from the fact that Buddhists do subscribe to the belief of an all-knowing and all-powerful deity. Buddhists do not worship any sentient, supreme being; and in the same vein, they do not have specific beliefs about the afterlife and the world that exists therein. The association of religion with the belief in gods and afterworlds to the exclusion of everything else is a mistaken notion that most people stubbornly adhere to. While belief in gods and some form of afterlife is a common characteristic of most religions, it is not a feature that distinguishes religion from those that are not. It may be argued that while Buddhism has no specific god who they believe can save them, they nevertheless have some sense of the divine or the ultimate truth; a truth that Buddhists believe any one individual can attain by their own determination. For Buddhists, one’s love for of one’s self is the chain that bonds us to a life of suffering and only by following Buddha’s path can a person be liberated from the cycle of causation and rebirth. Freedom from causality is the state of nirvana (William 142). Buddhists believe that our world is a world of suffering and causality, where one action causes another to take place. Followers of Buddhism denounce violence and espouse the principles of non-violence in all aspects of their lives. The virtue of nonviolence is one the key precepts of Buddhism, which is why followers are strict vegetarians and pacifists, Another major tenet of Buddhism is meditation. Buddhists believe that by going into your own thoughts, you cleanse and purify your soul. Meditation, while relaxing the body, sharply focuses the mind, thus enabling us to purge negative energy and achieve clarity of thought. Meditation is a keystone in Buddhism; without which one cannot achieve the awakening that they are looking for (William 167). Meditation as a cornerstone of Buddhism came from the fact that Buddha himself attained enlightenment after a long period of mediation. For Buddhists the meditation technique produces a sense of calm, but it does not entirely lead us away from all of our sufferings. Regardless of the proven benefits that meditation brings, it does not provide a complete pathway to enlightenment. Buddhists combine calm meditation with or insight meditation (William 198). Calming the body and then calming the mind. This type of meditation is intended for the development of a heightened sense of awareness about the world and our place in it. It asks us to be aware of what we are doing at the precise moment we are doing it. Some people call this process metacognition, or awareness of our awareness. Once this is achieved and sustained, then enlightenment will soon follow. The origin of Buddhism is traced to an Indian prince named Siddhartha, who, in spite of the wealth and power that surrounded him found no true happiness in them. Siddhartha had a lingering discontent; there was a compelling need for him to find the meaning and purpose of life; a need so urgent that he was willing to leave the comforts and safety of his home in search of answers. And so Siddhartha travelled the world in search for his personal truth. It took many years and experiences and deep reflections, until one day, under the Bo Tree, he found absolute clarity and illumination. (Penney 17) From thereon, he called himself Buddha which means the enlightened one. He continued on his travels but this time to teach the path of enlightenment to those who seek it. It is important to note that some Buddhist scholars fall into the trap of analyzing Buddha’s teachings that they neglect the actual spiritual experiences of Buddha, which is more important than the first. To grasp the spirit of Buddha, it is necessary to know the experiences of Buddha himself. Enlightenment, which is the final goal of all Buddhists, is an absolute state of acceptance and the absolute absence of discrimination, ignorance, and suffering. By ignorance, Buddha means spiritual unawareness, the inability to consciously seek the truth and recognize it once it has been found. In the end, the message of Buddhism is clear, that one must follow the Middle Path or take a detached view of reality for an individual to see his involvement and separation from everything in life. Once this state of detachment has been achieved, then will come the realization of how our live are empty in its absolute oneness with the universe. This realization of emptiness is achieved when one seeks constant awareness of experience and thought through meditation and by consciously taking the Middle Path in all of life’s extremes. While Buddhism if more focused on existential experiences, it does have the same goals as other forms of religion: transformation and growth. Religion, through the prescription of certain doctrines and rules of behavior, seeks the betterment of all its followers. Buddhism encompasses all aspects of the follower’s life. In fact it might be argued that Buddhism is more stringent in their rules as other denominations of faith. Because Buddhists are not subservient to any god, they do not claim monopoly of truth and salvation as well. Would-be-followers are not forced to forsake their original religion as long as they follow the Buddhist way of life, which is non-negotiable. The same â€Å"religious† issues beset Confucian philosophy. The absence of an omniscient potentiate excludes it from the list of what the world recognizes as religion as well. Confucianism was based on the teachings of Confucius, renowned ancient Chinese philosopher. While Buddhism focuses on suffering and enlightenment, Confucianism is more about human behavior in the context of civilized society. During the Qing Dynasty, Confucian teachings were organized and proclaimed as China’s state religion. (Yao 28) This political move stained the public’s perception of Confucianism, making it even more difficult to be classified as a religion. However, Confucianism is strictly about how to live a morally upright life based on good deeds and good citizenship. Despite this political underpinings, Confucianism remains the ideology of choice for most Chinese.

Public order Essay Example for Free

Public order Essay Step 1 1. Why is public order necessary? Primarily, its purpose is to maintain an ideal state of public decency as possible. A set standard applied to all citizens with little to no gray area in needed for this purpose. Without public order and its controls, no threat of repercussions against acts exists (to include criminal, personal or political violence) potentially creating a free-for-all and ensuing chaos. 2. Does our society have enough public order or too little? Unless the US implements a system commensurate with that of a totalitarian/communist government, it is hard to measure whether current public order policies are sufficient or lacking. Having said that, I believe there are enough controls in place to justify the amount that we do have without infringing on rights. As of now, they are stringent enough to make potential criminals at least consider the weight of actions before they act on them. Considering the individual wills and motives of 300 million people, the current system is doing as good a job as can be expected. Step 2 3. What can crime statistics tell us about the crime picture in America? How has that picture changed over time? It gives those that report/analyze crime rates data about how specific crimes can be compared across a spectrum of areas time. There have been three separate ebbs and flows of crime over nearly 70 years of statistics collection. The most consistent factor has been due to major shifts in the male population and socio-economic picture (wars, baby-boom civil rights struggle) during these times, coupled with increased government and law enforcement efforts.

History of the US and Mexico Border

History of the US and Mexico Border Tracing the Evolving Historiography of the U.S.-Mexico Border Introduction Regulating the border between the United States and Mexico is not a new issue. In fact, concerns over what to do with the border, what it should look like, and who should be allowed to cross have been prevalent questions since American and Mexican diplomats sat down to establish the border in the aftermath of the Mexican-American war in 1848. While the eastern half of the border is easily distinguished by the Rio Grande, the western border does not correspond to any recognizable geographic features and was instead made up of arbitrarily drawn lines through an uninhabited desert. It is along this permeable border that a borderlands historian like Rachel St. John’s monograph, Line in the Sand (2011), is concerned. While St. John’s work declares itself to be a history of the actual border, earlier historians like Clarence Clendenen and his work, Blood on the Border: The United States Army and the Mexican Irregulars (1969), is more of a military history discussing the Unite d States army’s involvement in border clashes with Indian and Mexican forces. In later years, economic and public policy history became the preferred methodology of examining the history of the U.S.-Mexico border like Douglas Massey’s Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in an Era of Economic Integration (2002) which examines the issue of managing immigration from Mexico through the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) in an era of increasing economic interdependence caused by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). When examined side by side, these three monographs are a good representation of just how drastically historians have changed the way they discuss they border in only the last fifty years. Since its inception, the ways in which historians discuss the U.S.-Mexico border have evolved significantly. Unlike earlier approaches, which were biased toward the United States and primarily concerned with the American point of view, newer works like St. John’s are beginning to take a more transnational approach to tracing the evolution of the boundary between the two nation-states from its inception as a meaningless line on a map to the complex system of barriers and strict regulation that allows for the easy passage of some people, animals, commodities, and goods, while restricting the movements of others. Given the controversy and politics that are deeply entrenched in discussions about the U.S.-Mexico border, St. John’s work is by no means the pinnacle of successful transnational history, however it does act as a step in the right directions for future historians to further expand upon. It is easy to assume that borderlands history would be inherently transnational because oftentimes borderlands are â€Å"crossroads where people and their institutions and traditions come together, creating distinctive ways of organizing space and transforming the seemingly fixed edges of empires and nations into fluid spaces†.[1] However that is not always the case, especially in the scholarship about the U.S.-Mexico border, which is heavily politicized in both nations. The best transnational histories examine the interconnections between political units, especially the flow of goods, people, and ideas across borders. These works trace how US involvement overseas shapes not only foreign peoples, but also Americans back home. The most successful works incorporate a variety of historical methods and draw on US and foreign archives while paying attention to the role of non-state actors and the agency of non-elites.[2] While each monograph discussed tend to only focus on a few of these qualifiers, there is a noticeable trend that scholarship is becoming more transnational, however maybe not as quickly as one would thing. The subject matter of borderland history lends itself well to transnational methodology, however historians are still more concerned with the elite actors, politics, and the American point of view for any of these works to be considered truly transnational. Blood on the Border Published in 1969, Clendenen’s Blood on the Border: The United States Army and the Mexican Irregulars is one of the earliest examples of borderland history and thus takes a more traditionalist approach to historical writing. As a graduate of West Point and the Curator Emeritus of the Military Collection at Stanford University, it is no surprise that Clendenen’s monograph is primarily focused on the tense history of border skirmishes that occurred between the U.S. and Mexican armies between 1848 and 1917.   Clendenen’s work chronicles a series of episodes where the U.S. and Mexican armies clashed with each other beginning with the activities of Juan Cortina who was a Robin Hood-like figure, later chapters also describes U.S. military activity during the Civil War, the campaigns against the Kickapoos and Apaches, and border problems during the revolutionary period. Clendenen then devotes over half of the book to examining General Pershing’s Punitive Expedition against the Mexican revolutionary general Francisco â€Å"Pancho† Villa in 1916. Clendenen’s main argument is that the Punitive Expedition was not a humiliating failure for the US military, however this period of U.S.-Mexico history has been greatly neglected by historians because it had been forgotten amidst the earlier wars with the Plains Indians and World War I. He argues: â€Å"General Pershing’s Punitive Expedition was soon so over-shadowed by the entry of the United States into World War I that historians have given it scant attention, and most of those who grant it a few sentences, or a paragraph or two, are amazingly misinformed about it. Yet the operations of small American forces in northern Mexico on numerous occasions constitute a phase of our military history that is well worth rescuing†.[3] To support his argument, Clendenen relies on a variety of sources including interviews, diaries and autobiographies of American soldiers, as well as U.S. archival sources. However Mexican sources are nearly nonexistent. He justifies that the exclusion of Mexican sources was intentional because his goal is to describe the basis on which American commanders formed their decisions. Clendenen argues that his research deliberately presents only the American perspective on the border conflicts because that is the nature of military history. â€Å"A military history written from the point of view of a participant nation is necessarily one-sided; it cannot be completely objective regarding the enemy†¦ the commander of a military unit must base his decisions upon the information he actually has at a given moment—not upon what a scholar or historian may know half a century later†¦ Hence, I make no apology for having cited very few Mexican sources†¦Ã¢â‚¬ .[4] Clendenen is also reluctant to include Mexican sources because, he argues, it is very difficult for an American to obtain firsthand information regarding events and activities. â€Å"Mexicans, for some reason or other,† he says, â€Å"are reluctant to discuss border events with Americans†.[5] This type of justification for focusing on the American narrative falls in line with most of the early scholarship about the U.S.-Mexico border. Very little, if any, of Clendenen’s work can be considered transnational even though its subject matter is about the US and Mexican army’s movements throughout the borderlands. Aside from examining the interconnections between political units (in this case, the militaries of two countries), Clendenen does little to examine the flow of goods, people, and ideas across borders, or focus on the role of non-state actors and the agency of non-elites. Little attention is also paid to tracing how the United States’ involvement overseas affects those back home. Beyond Smoke and Mirrors   By the early 2000s, scholarship on the U.S.-Mexico border was starting to become more willing to discuss the non-state, non-American actors, though it still tended to have a strong American perspective. Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in an Era of Economic Integration (2002) by Douglas Massey et al. examines the economic and public policy history of the U.S.-Mexico border—specifically the opposing effects of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)—to draw conclusions about the complexities of how the border operated between 1965 and 1986. Massey et al. argue that the migration system between Mexico and the United States is similar to a complicated piece of machinery and that their monograph is meant to troubleshoot the problems of immigration by describing the dramatic impact that immigration policies have had on those living in Mexico as well as the United States. The monograph operates as a sort of owner’s manual and describes how the migration system was built, how it worked until immigration policies first passed in 1986 disrupted it, and how the system changed as a consequence. Subsequently in its repair manual, the authors offer a specific set of proposals designed to fix the damage caused by these policies and make migration efficient and predictable again. The authors argue, Just as it is not advisable to take a wrench to a precision clock if one is not a qualified clockmaker, it is not wise to pull policy levers if one has no real conception of how the underlying system functions. Yet this is exactly what happened beginning in 1986, when the US Congress and successive presidents presided over a series of legislative and bureaucratic changes that fundamentally changed the rules under which the Mexico-US migration system operated†¦we seek to provide policymakers and citizens with a more accurate blueprint of the nuts and bolts of the Mexico-US migration system. We offer a kind of ‘owner’s manual’ to explain how the system works theoretically, how it was built historically, and how it functions substantively, or at least how it did function until the 1986 IRCA threw it out of synch.[6] To support their arguments, Massey et al. utilize an economic history  methodology by using a variety of  historical methods, statistical methods, and  economic  theory to  closely examine the relationship between immigration and U.S. public policies. Similar to Clendenen’s work, Massey et al. also do not look beyond the American archives for source materials. However their sources do show a greater amount of variety than Clendenen’s and even includes published articles from Mexican scholars, which is something Clendenen specifically avoided. The authors gathered information from a diverse set of sources including official statistics from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the Mexican National Statistical Institute, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the United Nations.[7] Most notably, the authors rely on data compiled by the Mexican Migration Project (MMP), a bi-national research project compiled by the University of Guadalajara and the University of Pennsylvania and directed by two of the authors, Jorge Durand and Douglas S. Massey.[8] Compared to Clarence Clendenen’s work, Beyond Smoke and Mirror shows a significant transformation in how historians study and write about the U.S.-Mexico border though the approach only hits on a few of the key qualifiers of a truly transnational work.   For example, Clendenen was solely concerned with recording the experiences of Americans who served in the army in the borderlands and justifying the United States’ involvement in various border skirmishes. On the other hand, Massey et al. have expanded the scope of their research in order to examine the broader picture of the immigration of non-state, non-elite actors and the influence agricultural employers and American politics had on the ebb and flow of people across the border. Massey et al. also attempt to address how the implementation of IRCA and NAFTA have interrupted the stable circular flow of Mexican migrants who arrived in the United States, quickly found jobs, and returned to Mexico for several months bef ore migrating back to the United States again. This steady immigration system â€Å"minimized the negative consequences and maximized the gain for both countries†. [9] In this aspect, the authors attempted to explain how United States involvement in Mexico reshaped the lives of not only Mexicans, but also Americans back home. Line in the Sand One of the most recent works of scholarship about the U.S.-Mexico border is Rachel St. John’s Line in the Sand: A History of the Western U.S.-Mexico Border (2011). As part of Princeton University’s America in the World series, this monograph is meant to represent the newest transnational methodology historians are using when writing about U.S-Mexico border history. St. John does employ a transnational methodology in her examination of the history of the U.S.-Mexico border, displaying a tremendous amount of change in the field, however the degree to which she utilizes key aspects of a true transnational work are somewhat disappointing for a monograph published in a transnational history series. This appears to be a problem concerning the subject area rather than the author, as other historians such as Mae Ngai and her work, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (2004),appear to suffer similar shortcomings. Regardless, St. John’s work does create a very useful stepping stone to guide future historians away from nationalistic, America-centered histories and towards studies not confined to political units that are more concerned with the role of non-state actors as subjects of an incredibly complex system. St. John attempts to differentiate her work from earlier scholarship about the border by immediately asserting that she is writing about the history of the physical border from its conception up to its modern form in the 1930s. She argues that the actual border itself is often ignored in scholarship that is supposedly about the border: â€Å"As borderlands historians have emphasized historical processes that transcend national boundaries and have expanded their focus to include zones of interaction outside of the US Southwest and Mexican north, they have often treated the border itself as in irrelevant or incidental part of the borderlands. By contrast, I emphasize the centrality of the boundary line in the processes of market expansion, conquest, state building, and identity formation with which many borderlands historians are concerned†.[10] St. John examines the transformation of the border chronologically from its origins in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, to a prosperous economic crossroads, and finally into a heavily policed series of checkpoints intent on keeping certain people and goods from crossing. St. John breaks her research up into chapters that can almost be viewed as a series of vignettes or snapshots throughout time of how the western U.S.-Mexico border quickly began to change. From its inception as well as the actual attempts by surveyors to map out the border, St. John argues that simply drawing a line on a map does not automatically guarantee territorial authority for a nation, especially one that is not marked by any distinct geographical features like the western border. Essentially, she writes, the creation of the western border â€Å"conjured up an entirely new space where there had not been one before†.[11] This is significant because for many years, the border remained a porous boundary that actually encouraged border residents to move freely. This idea of a porous border was especially beneficial for commercial development and bi-national cooperation, especially with the arrival of railroads in the 1880s. With the creation of railroads, St. John notes that a capitalist revolution had occurred, â€Å"grasslands became ranches, mountains became mines, and the border itself became a site of commerce and communities†¦ by the early twentieth century the border had become a point of connection and community in the midst of an emerging capitalist economy and the center of a transborder landscape of property and profit†.[12] However with the development of transnational capitalism came the creation of state border control, which was intent on protecting investors that profited from this economy by controlling the passage of goods and people across the border. By this time, military power was no longer the primary concern along the border. Instead, the U.S. and Mexico’s sovereignty was â€Å"measured in customs collected, immigrants rejected, and bandits arrested†.[13] The latter half of St. John’s work examines the use of the border to manage immigration. The ultimate challenge for both countries was the creation of a conditional border that allowed for the passage of desired migrants and commerce but obstructed the flow of those who were not welcome.[14] This conditional border was incredibly inconsistent and depended largely on the discretion of immigration officials, changes in law, and fluctuating economic conditions.[15] St. John attempts to address each of the key aspects of a transnational methodology with varying degrees of success. Most obvious is her examination of the interconnections between political units and the flow of goods, people, and ideas across borders because this is the entire basis of her research. Unlike Clendenen and Massey who only focused on the one-way flow of people and goods from Mexico to the United States, St. John actually expands on this idea in her work by examining the flow of people from Mexico to the United States and then back to Mexico at different points in time in the early twentieth century. She spends a considerable amount of time discussing the effects that immigration policy changes had on immigrant laborers, their families, and their communities—aspects of immigration that the earlier historians had all but ignored. Similar to St. John, Massey et al. also discuss the idea that the economy in the United States played a significant hand in influencing the ebb and flow of Mexican immigration, however they fail at investigating what happened to these people once they emigrated back to Mexico. St. John discusses the fluctuations of immigration, but she also attempts to tell the other side of the story by including the Mexican government’s response to deportations and increasingly strict immigration laws.[16] In this way, St. John does a much better job than earlier historians at tracing how U.S. involvement and policies shaped not only Mexican citizens, but Americans as well. This becomes increasingly apparent as she examines the sharp increases in policing of the border in the 1930s as â€Å" government officials not only made it more difficult for new migrants to cross the border but also criminalized Mexicans as â€Å"illegal aliens† and encouraged, coerced, and forced hundreds of thousands of Mexican nationals and US citizens of Mexican descent to move to Mexico†.[17] Changes in U.S. policy in attempts to protect its economy and citizens clearly affected deported Mexican citizens and people of Mexican descent, but it also fed into the growing anti-Mexican sentiment that many Americans were feeling at the time, essentially treating Mexican laborers as scapegoats for the lack of jobs leading up to the Great Depression. One aspect of St. John’s work that could use improvement is diversifying the sources that she uses. Again, this appears to be a problem inherent in this subject area rather than any fault of the author. While Clendenen intentionally used only American sources, later historians of U.S.-Mexico relations like Massey et al. and even Mae Ngai appear to have trouble including a fair amount of sources from foreign archives. This could be for a variety of reasons including language barriers, lack of access to the archives, or simply because perhaps the majority of scholarship on this subject could be published in the United States. St. John seems to have been more successful at including Mexican scholarship in her work compared to earlier scholars, however for a monograph specifically about the border between Mexico and the United States, her sources are still notably one-sided. Out of all of her research, St. John only visited three archives in Mexico to complete her work. These include the Archivo General del Estado de Sonora, the Archivo Histà ³rico Genaro Estrada, and the Instituto de Investigaciones Histà ³ricas.[18] In comparison to the numerous American archives she visited, it is hard to understand why she chose to include so few Mexican sources when a significant portion of her work is dedicated to the communities located on the Mexican side of the border. The vast majority of St. John’s research was conducted within the United States and she uses a variety of American archives to complete her work using a large assortment of books, photographs, manuscript collections, microfilm reels, government documents, and newspapers. St. John’s use of source materials is comparable to Massey et al. who used similar documents to complete their work only a decade earlier. The fact that scholars have yet to utilize Mexican sources to their greatest potential is somewhat disappointing for a work of transnational history but perhaps the next generation of historians will be able to improve the situation if the controversy and politics that are deeply entrenched in discussions about the U.S.-Mexico border ever simmer down. Rachel St. John’s Line in the Sand is the latest attempt by borderlands historians taking a transnational approach to their work. It may not be successful in all aspects of a truly transnational methodology however it does set the stage for future historians to build off of and think outside of the borders of traditional U.S.-centric histories. Conclusion Concerns over regulating the U.S.-Mexico border, what it should look like, and who should be allowed to cross it are issues as relevant today as they were when the border was first established 170 years ago. Tune into any news network today and information on the latest immigration policies and border control will surely be hotly debated between policymakers, citizens, and corporations who all have differing opinions on how the border should operate. While obvious geographical features like the Rio Grande easily delineate the eastern portion of the U.S.-Mexico border, the western border cuts through uninhabitable desert that is barely marked with more than a few fence posts in some areas. It is along this permeable half of the border that borderlands historians situate their work. Borderland histories have transformed significantly over the course of the century as historians are beginning to leave behind the nationalistic, pro-American sentiments of historical writing behind in favor of a better-rounded transnational approach that situates America in the context of the greater history of the world. Published in 1969, Clarence Clendenen’s Blood on the Border: The United States Army and the Mexican Irregulars represents the ways in which earlier historians often used military history when discussing border issues. In later years, economic and public policy history became the preferred methodology of examining the history of the U.S.-Mexico border like Douglas Massey’s Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in an Era of Economic Integration (2002). In recent years, historians like Rachel St. John are attempting to examine the history of the actual border itself without tying themselves down to writing specifically from the perspective of any one nation state. When examined chronologically, these monographs show just how drastically historians have changed the way they discuss they border in just the last fifty years. Unlike the earlier approaches to writing about the border, which were primarily concerned with the American point of view, newer works like St. John’s are beginning to take a more transnational approach to tracing the evolution of the boundary between Mexico and the United States from its inception as an unclear and undefined political boundary to the complex system of border patrols and strict regulation that allows for the easy passage of some people, animals, commodities, and goods, while at the same time restricting the movements of others. In many other fields of study, the transnational approach to history was specifically sparked by changes in how we examine and write about history in a post-9/11 world. However, discussions over the U.S.-Mexico border do not seem to follow this trend quite as closely as it is still a subject the general public is hotly divided over. This could be attributed to many reasons such as current events involving recently elected U.S. leadership fear mongering that it is imperative for the safety of American citizens and the economy to build a two thousand mile long wall along the border. This feeds into a deep-seated distrust of the immigration system after using Mexican immigrants as a convenient scapegoat for the better half of a century. As long as U.S. citizens, our government, and policies continue to vilify our neighbors to the south, any sort of progressive transnational scholarship will not be possible. Bibliography Clendenen, Clarence C., Blood on the Border: The United States Army and the Mexican Irregulars. London: The Macmillan Company, 1969. Hamalainen, Pekka and Benjamin Johnson. â€Å"What is Borderlands History?† In Major Problems in the History of North American Borderlands, 1-40.Wandsworth Publishing, 2011. Accessed May 1, 2017. http://inside.sfuhs.org/dept/history/Mexicoreader/Chapter8/borderlands/borderlandsch1.p df. Massey, Douglas S., Jorge Durand, and Nolan J. Malone. Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in an Era of Economic Integration. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2002. St. John, Rachel. Line in the Sand: A history of the Western U.S.-Mexico Border. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011. [1] Pekka Hamalainen and Benjamin Johnson, â€Å"What is Borderlands History?†, in Major Problems in the History of North American Borderlands (Wandsworth Publishing, 2011), 1. [2] Class notes. [3] Clarence C. Clendenen, Blood on the Border: The United States Army and the Mexican Irregulars (London: The Macmillan Company, 1969). Xvi. [4] Ibid., xvii [5] Ibid. [6] Douglas S. Massey et al., Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in an Era of Economic Integration (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2002). 2. [7] Ibid., 165. [8] Ibid. [9] Ibid., 71. >[10] Rachel St. John, Line in the Sand: A history of the Western U.S.-Mexico Border (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011). 5-6. [11] Ibid., 2. [12] Ibid., 64. [13] Ibid., 90. [14] Ibid., 175. [15] Ibid. [16] Ibid., 188. [17] Ibid. [18] Ibid., 249.