How does empire operate in frontiers and borderlands during times of conflict?

Empire on Edge reveals how British officials attempted, during the second half of the nineteenth century, to understand and impose order on northern Belize, an area that was both a frontier of colonial power and the locus of a disputed border with Mexico.

Their efforts were complicated by the local ramifications of Yucatán's Caste War (1847–1901), a long-lasting, violent struggle between segments of the indigenous Maya in southeast Mexico and the Mexican state.

The book also illuminates how people who were subject to these efforts, especially the Hispanic and various Maya groups, sought to thwart them by building alliances across seemingly firm lines of racial and ethnic division.

Along the way, important questions are raised about the dissonance between colonial and imperial projects, the nature of frontiers and borderlands, and the local effects of disputes between bordering countries.