Imperial Metropolis: Los Angeles, Mexico, and the Borderlands of American Empire, 1865–1941

David J. Weber Series in the New Borderlands History

by Jessica M. Kim

In this compelling narrative of capitalist development and revolutionary response, Jessica M. Kim reexamines the rise of Los Angeles from a small town to a global city against the backdrop of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, Gilded Age economics, and American empire. It is a far-reaching transnational history, chronicling how Los Angeles boosters transformed the borderlands through urban and imperial capitalism at the end of the nineteenth century and how the Mexican Revolution redefined those same capitalist networks into the twentieth.

Kim draws on archives in the United States and Mexico to argue that financial networks emerging from Los Angeles drove economic transformations in the borderlands, reshaped social relations across wide swaths of territory, and deployed racial hierarchies to advance investment projects across the border. However, the Mexican Revolution, with its implicit critique of imperialism, disrupted the networks of investment and exploitation that had structured the borderlands for sixty years, and reconfigured transnational systems of infrastructure and trade. Kim provides the first history to connect Los Angeles's urban expansionism with more continental and global currents, and what results is a rich account of real and imagined geographies of city, race, and empire.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

304 pages, Hardcover

First published September 16, 2019

Reviews

[Doug · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s an important story that spotlights a valuable part of Los Angeles history.

It is in desperate need of an editor. There is mind numbing repetition on almost every page.

[Tascha Folsoi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Reading Imperial Metropolis: Los Angeles, Mexico, and the Borderlands of American Empire, 1865-1941 gave me a clear understanding of how people like Doheny and the Otis/Chandler clan exported to Mexico our imperialist recipe for appropriating and profiting from land. While providing improvements and infrastructure for the stated purpose of modernizing and enriching Mexico, they ultimately extract an outsized quantity of wealth, labor, and suffering.

Communally held land -or commons- existed long before communism did. Land and their labor were the only means of production for agrarian people, and much land had been communally owned by the people. The "improvements" and infrastructure capitalists created on appropriated Mexican land did generate great financial wealth for themselves, but these improvements do so over and over again at the expense of those whose land they must take in order to extract said wealth. Ultimately, they also called upon the resources of the United States military to protect what was primarily their own interests, which, had the U.S. followed through, would have cost people on this side of the border much in money and blood. This book provides a close look at the precise methods used by the actors in Los Angeles with respect to their attempt to build and then ensure the defense of an empire in Mexico.

It did suffer from repetition that should have been edited out (which might have knocked it down to four stars, but I do really value the contribution the book makes). At times, I didn't mind the repetition and understood the purpose of it. The last couple of chapters suffered from the most unnecessary repetition. However the syntax is otherwise extremely strong and beautifully spare, and the arguments are organized well around information. I look forward to seeing what this author does next. As a high school teacher and a librarian, I would strongly recommend it to any teacher who wants to learn more about the topic. You could build a lot of curriculum, role plays, etc. around this book. Any interested high school student would enjoy it, and reading it would support their research.

[Alex Milton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jessica M. Kim’s Imperial Metropolis is a borderlands history that argues entrepreneurs from Los Angeles transformed the city from a small border settlement into a modern metropolis comparable to Chicago and San Francisco through exploitative investments of capital into Mexico. Kim argues the imperialism practiced by Los Angeles boosters focused on financial investments into mining projects labored by Mexicans instead of territorial expansion into Mexico. Although revolutionary movements within Mexico ended with foreign investments of Anglo-Americans nationalized, Los Angeles boosters continued to profit by forming Los Angeles into a hub and trade between the United States and Mexico following the 1930s. Kim’s focus on Los Angeles as the setting for the story stretching from the end of the American Civil War to the 1930s highlights the transformations of Los Angeles through empire. Kim’s excellent usage of newspapers and archival materials crafts a comprehensive narrative of foreign investments, labor, and race in the United States-Mexico borderlands based in Los Angeles.

[Sawyer Bohannan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jessica Kim’s Imperial Metropolis: Los Angeles, Mexico, and the Borderlands of American Empire, 1865-1941 was an enlightening read as I’ve had very little exposure to information on these histories regarding these regions. The work made me rethink how we view borders and conventional colonialism. We’re often taught that borders define the political and economic relationships–the sovereignty–of nations. Kim’s analysis left an impression on me that the border between the USA and Mexico (along with what Kim describes as Borderlands) as more symbolic than functional. What really mattered was the race and parasitic capitalist nature of American businesses and policymakers that would treat the border as a formality, as a tool that could be ignored or manipulated depending on their interests. The pursuit of profit and the use of racial hierarchies were used to justify the exploitation of entire groups of people. Do borders really matter in this history? Not as much as some would hope

[Annie · Rating 3 out of 5]

didn't do it for me

[Charles Heath · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent LA history. Stealthily avoids Mexican historiography which weakens authorial tone.
Maybe Weber series is saturated or over extended.
Some questionable phraseology: "'indigenous and mestizo' Mexicans" What other kind is there AMIRITE
And so much of the Revolution is overlooked or maybe even misunderstood.
Never heard the cry for "land and freedom" (Tierra y libertad) or "Mexico for Mexicans"
Some strong urban history of Los Angeles and some overextended arguments (Mexico as "hinterlands" for LA) based on three different capitalist ventures.