Book review: why walls won’t work: repairing the US-Mexico divide

Today, when one thinks of the border separating the United States from Mexico, what typically comes to mind is a mutually unwelcoming zone, with violent, poverty-ridden towns on one side and an increasingly militarized network of barriers and surveillance systems on the other. In Why Walls Won’t Work, Michael Dear explains why this view is problematic and false. Those interested in one way that the discipline of border studies has developed to account for the post 9/11 context will find this book interesting and instructive; Dear’s focus on the physicality of the border Wall itself is most convincing, writes Zalfa Feghali.