My book The Rise and Fall of the National Atlas is now available online from Cambridge University Press.
My analysis of the USA as a flawed democracy.
New book on geopolitics.
Reviews
It is the rare book about world politics that combines a comprehensive theoretical discussion with a detailed exploration of the events and crises that are central to it. That this book does so using an original world-regional approach to organizing its information is not just an added bonus but makes this volume one simply without peer
John Agnew, UCLA.
John Agnew, UCLA.
John Rennie Short has written a profound and well-illustrated introduction to the key concepts, themes, and contextual-regional issues in geopolitics. He explains not only the past key debates and classical regional concerns of geopolitics but also contemporary approaches and issues, opening perspectives that go beyond traditional state-centric territorial approaches. The book culminates in a discussion on such highly topical present-day global problems as climate change, pandemics, and the emerging hotspots and related challenges in geopolitics. This well-written and very accessible text is a rich resource that can be highly recommended to undergraduate courses in political geography, geopolitics, and political science.
Anssi Paasi, University of Oulu, Finland
This engaging, accessible, informative book offers telling insights into the geopolitical dynamics that have shaped, and continue to shape, the contemporary world. Charting a course between classical geopolitics and contemporary critical approaches, Short has put together a geopolitical tour du monde that is rich in both empirical detail and conceptual insight.
Alexander Murphy, University of Oregon
Anssi Paasi, University of Oulu, Finland
This engaging, accessible, informative book offers telling insights into the geopolitical dynamics that have shaped, and continue to shape, the contemporary world. Charting a course between classical geopolitics and contemporary critical approaches, Short has put together a geopolitical tour du monde that is rich in both empirical detail and conceptual insight.
Alexander Murphy, University of Oregon
New book on the rise and fall of the national atlas explores the relationship between nationalism and cartography and the links between the state and the depiction of national territory.
Reviews
A highly significant work not only for cartographic studies but also for historians of nationalism. Properly wide-ranging and clearly argued, this important work deserves much attention.
Jeremy Black, author of Maps and History
This compelling new history shows how nations used the power of maps to advance their interests. Short’s wide-ranging survey spans the globe in an era of rising and falling empires, global warfare, and expanding economies. It reveals how modernizing states pictured themselves to the world with cartography.
Max Edelson, University of Virginia
The book is an engaging discussion of the history and the histories of national atlases around the world. By using abundant visual material, the author delivers a cartographic tour-de-force to point out connections between nation-state, territory, and maps in the twentieth century.
John Seemann, Ball State University
Jeremy Black, author of Maps and History
This compelling new history shows how nations used the power of maps to advance their interests. Short’s wide-ranging survey spans the globe in an era of rising and falling empires, global warfare, and expanding economies. It reveals how modernizing states pictured themselves to the world with cartography.
Max Edelson, University of Virginia
The book is an engaging discussion of the history and the histories of national atlases around the world. By using abundant visual material, the author delivers a cartographic tour-de-force to point out connections between nation-state, territory, and maps in the twentieth century.
John Seemann, Ball State University
Stress Testing The USA (2nd ed) Palgrave Macmillan.
Stress tests highlight a system’s weak spots. This second edition provides a stress testing of the United States by exploring in detail the background to the disasters of the War on Terror, Hurricane Katrina, the financial crisis, the Gulf oil spill and the COVID-19 epidemic. These major stresses―the country’s longest war, its biggest natural disaster, its biggest financial collapse since the Great Depression, its biggest oil spill and its worst pandemic since the influenza pandemic of 1918―tell us much about structural flaws in the United States. This book explores each of these events in detail to locate the seed of the disasters, and highlights what we have learned and not learned from these stress tests.