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RR 2016/082 Handbook of the Politics of the Arctic Edited by Leif Christian Jensen and Geir Hønneland Edward Elgar Cheltenham and Northampton, MA 2015 xiv+618 pp. ISBN 978 0 85973 473 4 (print); ISBN 978 0 85973 474 1 (e-book) £210 $335
Available electronically through Elgaronline
Keywords Arctic, Guides and handbooks, Politics
Review DOI 10.1108/RR-11-2015-0265
Although exploration of the Arctic has been carried on for hundreds of years, and cost many lives, its harsh environment ensured until recently that it had not an important place in international affairs. With the development of long-range aircraft, inter-continental ballistic missiles, and nuclear submarines in the late twentieth century, this situation began to alter, and the publishers of this book can assure its readers that "the Arctic has again become one of the leading issues on the international foreign policy agenda". These readers are expected to be "students, academics, political scientists and international lawyers working on Arctic affairs", not to speak of geographers, sociologists and anthropologists. To inform this wide readership, the editors have assembled 29 chapters by 42 contributors, mainly Scandinavian academics. As one might expect in a collective volume, their contributions differ widely in their approach, ranging from a study of the international law governing the trade in Arctic marine mammals, to a chapter on The Role of Discourse Analysis in Understanding Spatial Systems in theoretical language and quoting such authorities as Michel Foucault. A hazard in this kind of book is that some important aspect...