ranging and engaging history of the region from the Gilded Age to the immediate aft ermath of the Second World War. Tracking the West’s transformations across these decades, Wrobel details how the region shifted from generally imitative to trending innovative in its relationship to national developments. An eminent cultural historian, who has authored several books about the legacy of the frontier in the American and global imagination in the twentieth century, Wrobel here extends his vision to encompass demographic, economic, and especially political developments. Th e book particularly spotlights the West’s role in national politics. It tracks changes in the electoral map across the region for each presidential vote and underscores the ways in which the West, through the Senate, though not the House, exercised disproportionate power over the nation’s politics. Wrobel also emphasizes how political power translated into lopsided federal support. When Wrobel takes up the persistent lament by westerners that their region was held in colonial subjugation by Wall Street and Washington, DC, he is armed with ample statistics to refute claims of exploitation, at least as far as the West’s relationship with Washington. Dismissing Bernard DeVoto’s celebrated 1934 article that labeled and lamented the continuing colonial thralldom of the West, Wrobel observes that “by the time the Harper’s article was published, the West . . . was becoming as much a pampered province as a plundered one” (161). Absent shared grievances aimed at presumed oppressors, readers might well ask, what is left to hold the West together? Th e book’s answer seems to be “not much.” Indeed, one of the strengths of America’s West is its consistent attention to the diversity of the region. In nearly every section of each chapter, Wrobel breaks the West apart to give careful consideration to the divergent development of California, the Pacifi c Northwest, the Southwest, and the Great Plains, with the last oft en further divided into northern, central, and southern subregions. Th at allows Wrobel to present a more complex and more accurate portrait of the West in the fi rst half of the twentieth century. But it also suggests the book might have been better titled America’s Wests.

中文翻译：

---

自由的种族边界：二十世纪西部的非裔美国人编辑。作者：Herbert G. Ruffin II 和 Dwayne A. Mack

该地区从镀金时代到第二次世界大战的直接后果的范围和引人入胜的历史。Wrobel 跟踪西方这几十年的转变，详细介绍了该地区如何在与国家发展的关系方面从普遍模仿转变为趋势创新。作为一位杰出的文化历史学家，他撰写了多本关于 20 世纪美国和全球想象中的边疆遗产的书籍，Wrobel 在这里将他的视野扩展到涵盖人口、经济，尤其是政治发展。这本书特别突出了西方在国家政治中的作用。它跟踪每次总统投票时整个地区的选举地图的变化，并强调西方通过参议院而不是众议院，对国家政治行使不成比例的权力。Wrobel 还强调了政治权力如何转化为不平衡的联邦支持。当 Wrobel 接受西方人对他们的地区被华尔街和华盛顿特区控制在殖民统治下的持续哀叹时，他拥有充足的统计数据来驳斥剥削的说法，至少就西方与华盛顿的关系而言。弗罗贝尔驳斥了伯纳德·德沃托 (Bernard DeVoto) 在 1934 年发表的那篇著名的文章，该文章对西方持续的殖民奴役进行了标记和哀叹，他指出“到哈珀的文章发表时，西方…… . . 正在成为一个受宠的省份和一个被掠夺的省份”（161）。如果没有针对推定的压迫者的共同不满，读者可能会问，还有什么能把西方团结在一起？这本书的答案似乎是“不多。” 事实上，美国西部的优势之一是对地区多样性的一贯关注。在几乎每一章的每一节中，Wrobel 都将西部分开，仔细考虑了加利福尼亚、太平洋西北、西南和大平原的不同发展，最后通常进一步分为北部、中部和大平原。南部次区域。这使得 Wrobel 能够呈现出一幅更复杂、更准确的 20 世纪上半叶的西方画像。但这也表明这本书可能更适合命名为美国西部。太平洋西北部、西南部和大平原，最后通常进一步分为北部、中部和南部子区域。这使得 Wrobel 能够呈现出一幅更复杂、更准确的 20 世纪上半叶的西方画像。但这也表明这本书可能更适合命名为美国西部。太平洋西北部、西南部和大平原，最后通常进一步分为北部、中部和南部子区域。这使得 Wrobel 能够呈现出一幅更复杂、更准确的 20 世纪上半叶的西方画像。但这也表明这本书可能更适合命名为美国西部。