The Scramble for the Poles

In August 2007 a Russian flag was planted under the North Pole during a scientific expedition triggering speculation about a new scramble for resources beneath the thawing ice.

But is there really a global grab for Polar territory and resources? Or are these activities vastly exaggerated? In this rich and wide-ranging book, Klaus Dodds and Mark Nuttall look behind the headlines and hyperbole to reveal a complex picture of the so-called scramble for the poles. Whilst anxieties over the potential for conflict and the destruction of what is often perceived as the world's last wildernesses have come to dominate Polar debates and are, to some extent, justified, their study also highlights longer historical and geographical patterns and processes of human activity in these remote territories. Over the past century, Polar landscapes have been probed, drilled, fished, tested on and dug up, as their indigenous populations have struggled to protect their rights and interests.

No longer remote places, or themselves 'poles apart' from one another, the contemporary geopolitics of the Polar regions has lessons for us all as we confront a warming world where access to resources is a concern for states, big and small.

Preface

List of Figures and Maps

Chapter 1: Scrambling for the Extraordinary

Chapter 2: Making and Remaking the Polar Regions

Chapter 3: Under Ice and Snow

Chapter 4: Governing the Arctic and Antarctic

Chapter 5: New Resource Frontiers

Chapter 6: Opening up the Poles

Chapter 7: Polar Demands and Demanding Polar Regions

Notes

References

"A rich historical, geopolitical and social anthropoligical account of soverign space-making practices."
International Affairs

"Leading polar scholars Klaus Dodds and Mark Nuttall reveal the nuances in the scramble for the poles, as they are unveiled by the potent combination of climate change and enabling technologies in a context of resource pursuit and the changing global order. Polar security in the broadest sense, depends on constraining this scramble over coming decades."
Alan D. Hemmings, Gateway Antarctica, University of Canterbury

"This powerful book details the myriad contrasts and connections between the contemporary Polar Regions. Using the metaphor of scrambles, Dodds and Nuttall provide a major, comparative statement for the future social and political study of the poles."
Richard Powell, University of Oxford

"A thought-provoking book."
Polar Record

Klaus Dodds is Professor of Geopolitics at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Mark Nuttall is Professor and Henry Marshall Tory Chair at the University of Alberta, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.