Air pollution challenges nations sharing common borders to balance economic needs with protecting citizens and the environment across jurisdictions. By examining landmark cases on the two borders, John Wirth shows how environmental diplomacy, citizen action at the grassroots level, and the role of science, industry, and the law converged, bringing Canada, the United States, and Mexico to the threshold of today's continental approaches to pollutant pathways.

Wirth first examines the famous Trail smelter conflict of 1927-1941. This precedent-setting case, which pitted U.S. farmers against the Canadian smelter, resulted in the doctrine that in cases of transborder damage, the polluter must pay. Although the farmers were modestly compensated and the British Columbia-based smelter cooperated to control pollution, Wirth reveals the real significance of the decision: U.S. industries shared with the Canadians a common interest to resolve the case in a manner that would allow them to continue to pollute freely across international borders with minimal regulation.

Wirth then turns to the Gray Triangle confrontations of the 1980s, in which the new instruments of the Clean Air Act and cooperative policies developed by the Mexican and U.S. governments established an entirely new climate for citizen action, resulting in the closing of an American smelter in Arizona and the imposition of stricter standards on two Mexican smelters in Sonora. Although the Trail precedent favored industry, the Gray Triangle resolution signaled that the needs of industry and the public interest were now in better balance.

Drawing on extensive interviews and previously untapped archives, Smelter Smoke in North America provides new analysis of the development of a North American institutional response to continental air pollution. It chronicles how industry developed a continental perspective in a shared regional space, the mineralized West, and how successful efforts of governments and citizens to protect the environment evolved.

This is a wide-ranging inquiry into the forces that define the nations of North America and that, through convergence, are bringing North America's peoples and institutions closer together. These socio-cultural and regional forces form a web of factors that goes beyond trade and investment policy to articulate each nation's sense of identity through its history, values, and practices. Can some sort of functional community emerge from these disparate identities? Are there fresh opportunities for cooperation to be found in North America's value structures, social groupings, and institutions? If so, what are the costs and the benefits that might accompany interactions that touch upon each nation's culture and sense of self?
Since no book at this early stage of continental consciousness can or should aspire to be definitive, this inquiry - by thirteen scholars from Canada, Mexico, and the United States - is an attempt to assess the dynamics of identities and to seek out ways in which the three nations can become more comfortable with their collective future on the continent. The book's underlying premise is not the inevitability of community in North America, but its possibility.

This volume grew out of a conference series sponsored jointly by the Stanford-Berkeley Joint Center for Latin American Studies and the Instituto Universitario de Pesquisas do Rio de Janeiro (IUPERJ). Entitled "Opportunities and Constraints in Peripheral Industrial Society: The Case of Brazil," the first conference was held in Nova Friburgo in July 1983 and was followed up by another at Berkeley in late January 1984. In the course of our discussions, the subject matter widened so that a new title was chosen for this book. Also,in the interim, as Brazil made the transition to democracy and returned to economic growth, many topics on the agenda for the 1980s emerged in clearer focus, so that the chapters have all been sharpened and upgraded. In the division of labor that produced this book, Nunes coordinated the project at Berkeley and in Brazil, while Wirth and Bogenschild did the editing.

This is a wide-ranging inquiry into the forces that define the nations of North America and that, through convergence, are bringing North America's peoples and institutions closer together. These socio-cultural and regional forces form a web of factors that goes beyond trade and investment policy to articulate each nation's sense of identity through its history, values, and practices. Can some sort of functional community emerge from these disparate identities? Are there fresh opportunities for cooperation to be found in North America's value structures, social groupings, and institutions? If so, what are the costs and the benefits that might accompany interactions that touch upon each nation's culture and sense of self?
Since no book at this early stage of continental consciousness can or should aspire to be definitive, this inquiry - by thirteen scholars from Canada, Mexico, and the United States - is an attempt to assess the dynamics of identities and to seek out ways in which the three nations can become more comfortable with their collective future on the continent. The book's underlying premise is not the inevitability of community in North America, but its possibility.

One of three independent but coordinated studies on Brazilian regionalism, this book examines the complex dynamics of state-level and political structures in the politically important state of Minas Gerais.

Twenty-five years before the Manhattan Project created the town of Los Alamos, the Pajarito Plateau was home to an elite prep school for boys, ages twelve to eighteen. The Los Alamos Ranch School combined a robust outdoor life and a carefully cultivated wilderness experience with a rigorous academic program and the structured discipline of a Boy Scout troop, perfectly mirroring the Progressive Era's quest for perfection.

John Wirth's father, Cecil, taught at the school and directed its summer camp. John spent his early childhood at the school along with his brother Tim, later a U.S. Senator from Colorado. Drawing on oral accounts, memoirs, and archival documents, as well as John's firsthand knowledge and family lore, the authors situate the school within the educational trends of the day and New Mexico's cultural milieu.

Wirth and Aldrich examine the influence of the school's controversial director, Albert J. Connell, who was roundly disliked by two of the best-known students, Gore Vidal and William S. Burroughs. Many other students reported their time at the school to be a profoundly positive, often life-changing, experience. Additional chapters recount the growing-up experiences of ranch workers' children and the role the school played in their lives and those of area residents.

Essays covering five case studies to gain an insight into the unique Latin American approach to petroleum resources and industries.