The Big Bend region of Texas-variously referred to as "El Despoblado" (the uninhabited land), "a land of contrasts," "Texas'' last frontier," or simply as part of the Trans-Pecos-enjoys a long, colorful, and eventful history, a history that began before written records were maintained. With Big Bend''s Ancient and Modern Past, editors Bruce A. Glasrud and Robert J. Mallouf provide an interdisciplinary compilation of articles originally published in the Journal of Big Bend Studies, reviewing the unique past of the Big Bend area from the earliest habitation to 1900. Scholars of the region investigate not only the peoples who have successively inhabited it but also the nature of the environment and the responses to that environment. As the studies in this book demonstrate, the character of the region has, to a great extent, dictated its history.The study of Big Bend history is also the study of borderlands history. Studying and researching across borders or boundaries, whether national, state, or regional, requires a focus on the factors that often both unite and divide the inhabitants. The dual nature of citizenship, of land holding, of legal procedures and remedies, of education, and of history permeate the lives and livelihoods of past and present residents of the Big Bend. Thus, the study of this unique region offers a type of historical workshop for a new and growing group of scholars interested in the study and delineation of cross-cultural attributes. In this and other ways, Big Bend''s Ancient and Modern Past provides important new avenues for study and reflection.Bruce A. Glasrud is the retired dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at Sul Ross State University (Alpine, Texas). His numerous previously published books include Texas Labor History (with James C. Maroney) and Southern Black Women in the Modern Civil Rights Movement (with Merline Pitre), both published in 2013 by Texas A&M University Press.Robert J. Mallouf, formerly state archaeologist of Texas and director of the Center for Big Bend Studies at Sul Ross State University, has published extensively on the prehistory and history of Texas, Kansas, and north-central Mexico.