Drawing largely on oral testimonies from living informants and from ten years of fieldwork in surviving brickyards, Cook explores the organization, development, and techniques of the border brick industry, cataloging the range of organizational forms of brick manufacturing from household-based petty commodity units to wage-labor-based petty capitalist units. He also highlights a series of linkages between production, labor markets, and commodity markets. Finally, he focuses on how and why handmade brick production disappeared in Texas just as it grew explosively in Mexico, roughly in the period from the 1950s to the 1980s.

Cook necessarily deals with both sides of the border. Historically, the circular flow of people, materials, and culture in the brick industry has defied the River as any sort of formidable barrier to movement. Yet this study documents that, especially in this century, the "Border" cannot be romantically dismissed as a fiction which has no commonplace effect on the movement of people, commodities, and culture.

Major themes include the development of Mexican brick culture in Texas, the Mexican brick export industry and the role of joint capital, the impact of intercultural relations on cross-border business, and issues of citizenshipand identity in the histories of border brickmaking families.