The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 86, July 1982 - April, 1983 Page: 367

Book Reviews

notations for each of the citations. Unfortunately, the citations are
arranged by type of source instead of by subject. Thus, the user who
wishes to find sources pertaining to a particular topic should look
under each of the eight headings. A name, author, and subject index
partially rectifies this problem and in many cases cuts down on search-
ing time, but not necessarily the turning of pages.
However, the user who takes the time to conduct a search in the
bibliography will be rewarded. Also, the eight appendices are handy
reference compilations, some reprinted from other works. Especially
useful are the "Mexican War Chronology," "Chronological List of
Battles of the Regular Army," "American Officials During the Mexi-
can War," and "Naval Vessels." Appendix VIII includes maps of the
western United States, Mexico, disputed territory, and certain battles.
This bibliography should be purchased by most large reference and
university libraries, especially since its price will limit the number of
individual buyers.
Historical Division, Army Corps of Engineers DALE E. FLOYD
On the Border: Portraits of America's Southwestern Frontier. By Tom
Miller. (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1981. Pp. xiii+
226. Introduction, maps, bibliography, index. $12.95).
In a manner reminiscent of itinerants who journeyed across fron-
tier Texas and the Southwest, Tom Miller traveled from Browns-
ville, Texas, to the Pacific coast, recording his impressions of the
boundary separating Mexico and the United States. His four months
of observations in 1980 focus solely on the border settlements, and he
makes no attempt to analyze the dynamics of the region. Miller acts
neither as a social critic nor a historian. Actually, that is not his pur-
pose; his primary intent is to show the wide range of activity and at-
titudes among border peoples and to shed light on their everyday
struggles and pleasures.
In recording his travels, Miller devotes one chapter to every stop
that he made, focusing on some interesting aspect of town life or a
problem therein. What he comes up with is a compilation of essays on
diverse subjects dealing with romance, politics, smuggling, cockfight-
ing, broadcasting, crime, education, immigration, and other features
of life that bind settlements on opposite sides of the Rio Grande to-
gether. We come to see an aspect of border life that is human in spirit,
instead of one of cold statistics pointing to poverty, illiteracy, crime,

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