End of the Road

the California-Baja border fence                                                                 KW

At one point in their journey, the title character in L. Frank Baum's The Patchwork Girl of Oz and her friends meet an obstacle, thus: "They had traveled some distance when suddenly they faced a high fence which barred any further progress straight ahead." Rather like the refugees at the Hungarian border. Or the would-be immigrants at the U.S.'s southern border. Fences, of course, are nothing new, but it seems that there are now more of them separating countries than ever before. In fact, according to this article, "Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, 40 countries around the world have built fences against 64 of their neighbours." The map that accompanies the piece illustrates the reality of this new world order (story, interactive map): http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/09/daily-chart-10