B. H. D. BUCHLOH / SERGE GUILBAUT / DAVID H. SOLKIN
America is a smuggler nation. Our long history of illicit imports has ranged from West Indies molasses and Dutch gunpowder in the 18th century, to British industrial technologies and African slaves in the 19th century, to French condoms and Canadian booze in the early 20th century, to Mexicanu003cbru003e u003cbru003e workers and Colombian cocaine in the modern era.u003cbru003e u003cbru003e u003cbru003e u003cbru003e Providing a sweeping narrative history from colonial times to the present, Smuggler Nation is the first book to retell the story of America - andof its engagement with its neighbors and the rest of the world - as a series of highly contentious battles over clandestine commerce. As Peter Andreasu003cbru003e u003cbru003e demonstrates in this provocative and fascinating account, smuggling has played a pivotal and too often overlooked role in America's birth, westward expansion, and economic development, while anti-smuggling campaigns have dramatically enhanced the federal government's policing powers. The greatu003cbru003e u003cbru003e irony, Andreas tells us, is that a country that wasborn and grew up through smuggling is today the world's leading anti-smuggling crusader.u003cbru003e u003cbru003e u003cbru003e u003cbru003e In tracing America's long and often tortuous relationship with the murky underworld of smuggling, Andreas provides a much-needed antidote to today's hyperbolic depictions of out of control borders and growing global crime threats. Urgent calls by politicians and pundits to regain control of theu003cbru003e u003cbru003e nation's borders suffer from a severe case of historical amnesia, nostalgically implying that they were ever actually under control. This is pure mythology, says Andreas. For better and for worse, America's borders have always been highly porous.u003cbru003e u003cbru003e u003cbru003e u003cbru003e Far from being a new and unprecedented danger to America, the illicit underside of globalization is actually an old American tradition. As Andreas shows, it goes back not just years but centuries. And its impact has been decidedly double-edged, not only subverting but also empowering America.
