Territorial Imaginaries

Kären Wigen is the Frances and Charles Field Professor in History at Stanford University.

"What is sovereignty? And what should we do with it? Territorial Imaginaries brilliantly exposes the myths of jigsaw-puzzle territoriality and tears apart the familiar pastel-colored map. With essays that span almost a thousand years and reach across Asia, Europe, and the Americas, this volume offers a remarkable conversation between history, critique, and productive alternatives for understanding political geography and spatial imagination in new ways. The result not only showcases the diversity and malleability of territory over time, space, and culture but also asks us to rethink how maps and other visual material can stabilize—or destabilize—the relationship between peoples, states, and space. Every contribution is packed with insight and speaks convincingly across fields."

• ForewordIntroductionKären WigenPart I. Mapping Practices before the Nation-State1. Ambiguous Territories: Mapping Siberia in the Era of Peter the GreatValerie Kivelson2. From People to Territory: (The Chinggisid) Sovereignty Transformed?Lhamsuren Munkh-Erdene3. Maps for Failed StatesPeter K. Bol4. On the Ottoman Arguments during the Congress of Karlowitz (1699)Ali YaycıoğluPart II. Pushing Back against the Sovereign Map5. Territorial Challenges at Interstate Borders: Where and How History MattersAlexander B. Murphy and Cy Abbott6.  Reconceptualizing the State and Its Alternatives: Ideas, Infrastructures, RepresentationsJordan Branch7. Voluminous, Scattered, Distorted: On the Limits of Cartographic RepresentationsFranck BilléPart III. From Critique to Counter-Cartography8. Indigenous Sovereignty Out of TimeBarbara E. Mundy9. Erasing the Other: Maps, Bordering, and Political PowerGuntram Herb10. Visualizing Shared Dominion in the Holy Roman Empire: Dilution, Orientation, OscillationLuca ScholzNotesList of ContributorsIndex