“[A] fine ethnographic study of a rigid, militaristic, masculinist bureaucracy, the Border Patrol. . . . Using vivid prose, Maril weaves the complex history of south Texas, with its race and class injustices, into the text and makes deft critiques of the ways the bureaucracy and its chaotic environment shape the agents’ behavior and language. . . . Highly recommended.”—Choice
“Entertaining . . . Maril has done a great service in delivering a very readable book about what really goes on at America’s most porous border.”—San Antonio Express-News
“Engaging and enlightening . . . An uncensored look at a branch of the U.S. government that rarely lets in outsiders.”—McAllen Monitor
“[Explores] the deeper, darker, and less obvious parts of [Texas] history and culture.”—Austin Chronicle
Patrolling Chaos is based on extensive ethnographic field work focusing on one station of three hundred Border Patrol agents over a two-year period. Following twelve typical agents, men and women, as they go about their regular ten-hour patrols along the border, the book describes the daily risks they face and the insights they hold as a result of their extensive, first-hand experience with the hard realities of immigration policy, the war on drugs, and the threat of terrorist infiltration.
Robert Lee Maril is professor in and chair of the Department of Sociology, East Carolina University, and the author of many books, including
Waltzing with the Ghost of Tom Joad.
