CUTTING FOR SIGN: One Man’s Journey Along...

CUTTING FOR SIGN: One Man’s Journey Along the U.S.-Mexican Border by William Langewiesche (Vintage: $12; 247 pp.). William Langewiesche notes that the 1,951-mile U.S.-Mexico border “has outlived the walls of Eastern Europe and has become perhaps the most potent political demarcation of our time. . . . Only here do the first and third worlds meet face-to-face, with no second world in between.” As he explores the barren borderlands, Langewiesche visits the gritty flyspeck towns of southwest Texas and the thriving drug trafficking center of Ojinaga, Chihuahua. The result is a starkly divided diptych of dire poverty and conspicuous consumption separated only by a political line. Unfortunately, this often provocative study is marred by Langewiesche’s willingness to call “Anglos” racists, polluters and exploiters, while glossing over problems produced on the Mexican side of the border.