Two Eagles / Dos Aguilas: A Natural History of the United States–Mexico Borderlands

Blake's stunning photography reveals the remarkable diversity of life and terrain within the lands along the U.S.-Mexico border; Steinhart's inspired text provides environmental awareness and an understanding of the role that humans have played. Together they offer a reminder that the region's human and natural history cannot be separated.

Two kinds of experiences await the reader in this moving and beautiful book—those for the eye and those for the mind. Tupper Ansel Blake's stunning photography reveals the remarkable diversity of life and terrain within the lands that lie along the United States-Mexico border; Peter Steinhart's inspired text provides regional history, environmental awareness, and an understanding of the role that humans have played there.

The 2,000-mile swath shared by the United States and Mexico is often dismissed as one of worthless scrub, or as a hostile no-man's-land populated by border patrols and furtive immigrants. It is in fact among the richest, most biologically diverse, and most endangered areas in all of North America. Tropical and temperate zones overlap in the borderlands—ocelots and parrots, black bears and elk all make their homes there. It is a region not just of cactus and mesquite, but of pine forests, oak woodlands, lush grasslands, and riverside groves of cottonwood and sycamore. Equally diverse are the people of the borderlands, many of whom share a long heritage of living with the land without despoiling it.

If our political view of the borderlands has hidden from us its beauty and fragility, then Two Eagles/Dos Aguilas will reopen our eyes. The recent North American Free Trade Agreement is a reminder that the region's human and natural history cannot be separated, and that the political boundary between the two nations casts a long shadow over the bald eagle of the United States and the caracara, the eagle of Mexico.