Once Within Borders

Territories of Power, Wealth, and Belonging since 1500

Charles S. Maier

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Hardback

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English

Belknap Press
17 October 2016

General & world history; Politics & government; Geopolitics; Political geography

Throughout history, human societies have been organized preeminently as territories-politically bounded regions whose borders define the jurisdiction of laws and the movement of peoples. At a time when the technologies of globalization are eroding barriers to communication, transportation, and trade, Once Within Borders explores the fitful evolution of territorial organization as a worldwide practice of human societies. Master historian Charles S. Maier tracks the epochal changes that have defined territories over five centuries and draws attention to ideas and technologies that contribute to territoriality's remarkable resilience.

Territorial boundaries transform geography into history by providing a framework for organizing political and economic life. But properties of territory-their meanings and applications-have changed considerably across space and time. In the West, modern territoriality developed in tandem with ideas of sovereignty in the seventeenth century. Sovereign rulers took steps to fortify their borders, map and privatize the land, and centralize their sway over the populations and resources within their domain. The arrival of railroads and the telegraph enabled territorial expansion at home and abroad as well as the extension of control over large spaces. By the late nineteenth century, the extent of a nation's territory had become an index of its power, with overseas colonial possessions augmenting prestige and wealth and redefining territoriality.

Turning to the geopolitical crises of the twentieth century, Maier pays close attention to our present moment, asking in what ways modern nations and economies still live within borders and to what degree our societies have moved toward a post-territiorial world.

By: Charles S. Maier
Imprint: Belknap Press
Country of Publication: United States
Edition: 1
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 156mm, Spine: 31mm
Weight: 788g
ISBN: 9780674059788
ISBN 10: 0674059786
Pages: 416
Publication Date: 17 October 2016
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Charles S. Maier is Leverett Saltonstall Research Professor of History at Harvard University. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Council on Foreign Relations, he has written a number of award-winning books, including Recasting Bourgeois Europe, The Unmasterable Past, Dissolution: The Crisis of Communism and the End of East Germany, and Once Within Borders.

Reviews for Once Within Borders: Territories of Power, Wealth, and Belonging since 1500

Charles Maier's Once Within Borders is a splendid account of the changing notions of territory over the past five centuries. Maier is among the most distinguished living historians and this timely book has been years in the making...He shows how changing geopolitics, the advent of commercial society, rise of industrial technology and development of new techniques of governance impinged upon evolving the notions of territory.--Srinath Raghavan Mint (12/26/2016)