The Mexico–Guatemala border has emerged as a geopolitical hotspot of illicit flows of both goods and people. Contraband Corridor seeks to understand the border from the perspective of its long-term inhabitants, including petty smugglers of corn, clothing, and coffee. Challenging assumptions regarding security, trade, and illegality, Rebecca Berke Galemba details how these residents engage in and justify extralegal practices in the context of heightened border security, restricted economic opportunities, and exclusionary trade policies. Rather than assuming that extralegal activities necessarily threaten the state and formal economy, Galemba's ethnography illustrates the complex ways that the formal, informal, legal, and illegal economies intertwine. Smuggling basic commodities across the border provides a means for borderland peasants to make a living while neoliberal economic policies decimate agricultural livelihoods. Yet smuggling also exacerbates prevailing inequalities, obstructs the possibility of more substantive political and economic change, and provides low-risk economic benefits to businesses, state agents, and other illicit actors, often at the expense of border residents. Galemba argues that securitized neoliberalism values certain economic activities and actors while excluding and criminalizing others, even when the informal and illicit economy is increasingly one of the poor's only remaining options. Contraband Corridor contends that security, neoliberalism, and illegality are interdependent in complex ways, yet how they unfold depends on negotiations between diverse border actors.

Borderlands are complex spaces that can involve military, religious, economic, political, and cultural interactions—all of which may vary by region and over time. John W. I. Lee and Michael North bring together interdisciplinary scholars to analyze a wide range of border issues and to encourage a nuanced dialogue addressing the concepts and processes of borderlands.   Gathering the voices of a diverse range of international scholars, Globalizing Borderlands Studies in Europe and North America presents case studies from ancient to modern times, highlighting topics ranging from religious conflicts to medical frontiers to petty trade. Spanning geographical regions of Europe, the Baltics, North Africa, the American West, and Mexico, these essays shed new light on the complex processes of boundary construction, maintenance, and crossing, as well as on the importance of economic, political, social, ethnic, and religious interactions in the borderlands.   Globalizing Borderlands Studies in Europe and North America not only forges links between past and present scholarship but also paves the way for new models and approaches in future borderlands research.

The fraught relationship between Saudi Arabia and Iran is usually attributed to sectarian differences, even by the states’ own elites. However, this book shows that in their official speeches, newspaper editorials and Friday sermons, these elites use sectarian and nationalist references and tropes to denigrate each other and promote themselves in the eyes of their respective constituencies in the region. Talal Mohammad, who is fluent in both Arabic and Persian, examines Saudi-Iranian rivalry using discourse analysis of these religious, political and journalistic sources. Tracing what has been produced since 1979 in parallel, he argues for a consistent pattern of mutual misrepresentation, whereby each frames its counterpart as the ‘Other’ to which a specific political agenda can be justified and advanced. The book covers key events including the Iranian Revolution, the invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the Taliban war, the fall of Saddam, the Arab Spring, the rise of Mohammed bin Salman, and the war on ISIS. While until now Saudi-Iranian rivalry has been understood in primarily sectarian or geopolitical terms, the author argues here that the discursive othering serves as a propagandist function that supports more fundamental political and geopolitical considerations.

Dying by the Sword explores the US's evolving foreign policies from the Founding era to the present in order to ring the alarm on the US's increasing reliance on "kinetic" global diplomacy. Monica Duffy Toft and Sidita Kushi find that since the end of the Cold War and especially after 9/11, the US has initiated higher rates of military interventions, drastically escalating its usage of force abroad. Lacking clear national strategic goals, the US now pursues a whack-a-mole security policy that is more reactionary than deliberate. The book explores every major era of US foreign policy, combining historical narrative with anecdotes from US foreign policy officials, case studies, and evidence drawn from the Military Intervention Project (MIP), which measures the extent of US reliance on force. Each chapter highlights the ways in which the US used and balanced primary tools of statecraft—war, trade, and diplomacy—to achieve its objectives. It showcases, however, that in recent decades, the US has heavily favored force over the other pillars of statecraft. The book concludes with a warning that if the US does not reduce its reliance on kinetic diplomacy, it may do irrevocable damage to its diplomatic corps and doom itself to costly wars of choice. If this trend continues, it could spell disaster for the US's image, its credibility, and—ultimately—its ability to help maintain international stability.

The South Caucasus is the key strategic region between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea and the regional powers of Iran, Turkey and Russia and is the land bridge between Asia and Europe with vital hydrocarbon routes to international markets. This volume examines the resulting geopolitical positioning of Georgia, a pivotal state and lynchpin of the region, illustrating how and why Georgia's foreign policy is 'multi-vectored', facing potential challenges from Russia, int ernal and external nationalisms, the possible break-up of the European project and EU support and uncertainty over the US commitment to the traditional liberal international order.

Italy played a vital role in the Cold War dynamics that shaped the Middle East in the latter part of the 20th century. It was a junior partner in the strategic plans of NATO and warmly appreciated by some Arab countries for its regional approach. But Italian foreign policy towards the Middle East balanced between promoting dialogue, stability and cooperation on one hand, and colluding with global superpower manoeuvres to exploit existing tensions and achieve local influence on the other. Italy and the Middle East brings together a range of experts on Italian international relations to analyse, for the first time in English, the country’s Cold War relationship with the Middle East. Chapters covering a wide range of defining twentieth century events - from the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Lebanese Civil War, to the Iranian Revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan – demonstrate the nuances of Italian foreign policy in dealing with the complexity of Middle Eastern relations. The collection demonstrates the interaction of local and global issues in shaping Italy’s international relations with the Middle East, making it essential reading to students of the Cold War, regional interactions, and the international relations of Italy and the Middle East.

By delving into the complex, cross-generational exchanges that characterize any political project as rampant as empire, this thought-provoking study focuses on children and their ambivalent, intimate relationships with maps and practices of mapping at the dawn of the "American Century." Considering children as students, map and puzzle makers, letter writers, and playmates, Mahshid Mayar interrogates the ways turn-of-the-century American children encountered, made sense of, and produced spatial narratives and cognitive maps of the United States and the world. Mayar further probes how children's diverse patterns of consuming, relating to, and appropriating the "truths" that maps represent turned cartography into a site of personal and political contention. To investigate where in the world the United States imagined itself at the end of the nineteenth century, this book calls for new modes of mapping the United States as it studies the nation on regional, hemispheric, and global scales. By examining the multilayered liaison between imperial pedagogy and geopolitical literacy across a wide range of archival evidence, Mayar delivers a careful microhistorical study of U.S. empire.

International parliaments are on the rise. An increasing number of international organizations establishes 'international parliamentary institutions' or IPIs, which bring together members of national parliaments or - in rare cases - elected representatives of member state citizens. Yet, IPIs have generally remained powerless institutions with at best a consultative role in the decision-making process of international organizations. Why do the member states of international organizations create IPIs but do not vest them with relevant institutional powers? This study argues that neither the functional benefits of delegation nor the internalization of democratic norms answer this question convincingly. Rather, IPIs are best understood as an instrument of strategic legitimation. By establishing institutions that mimic national parliaments, governments seek to ensure that audiences at home and in the wider international environment recognize their international organizations as democratically legitimate. At the same time, they seek to avoid being effectively constrained by IPIs in international governance. The Rise of International Parliaments provides a systematic study of the establishment and empowerment of IPIs based on a novel dataset. In a statistical analysis covering the world's most relevant international organizations and a series of case studies from all major world regions, we find two varieties of international parliamentarization. International organizations with general purpose and high authority create and empower IPIs to legitimate their region-building projects domestically. Alternatively, the establishment of IPIs is induced by the international diffusion of democratic norms and prominent templates, above all that of the European Parliament. Transformations in Governance is a major academic book series from Oxford University Press. It is designed to accommodate the impressive growth of research in comparative politics, international relations, public policy, federalism, and environmental and urban studies concerned with the dispersion of authority from central states to supranational institutions, subnational governments, and public-private networks. It brings together work that advances our understanding of the organization, causes, and consequences of multilevel and complex governance. The series is selective, containing annually a small number of books of exceptionally high quality by leading and emerging scholars. The series is edited by Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Walter Mattli of the University of Oxford.

Security Strategies of Middle Powers in the Asia Pacific examines what drives the different regional security strategies of four middle powers in the Asia Pacific: Australia, Indonesia, South Korea and Malaysia. Drawing on the extant middle power literature, the authors argue that the regional security strategies of middle powers could take two forms, namely, functional or normative. A functional strategy means that the middle power targets its resources to address a specific problem that it has a high level of interest in, while a normative strategy refers to a focus on promoting general behavioural standards and confidence building at the multilateral level. This book argues that whether a middle power ultimately employs a more functional or normative regional security strategy depends on its resource availability and strategic environment.

Asia is a crucial battleground for power and influence in the international system. It is also a theater of new experiments in regional cooperation that could redefine global order. Whose Ideas Matter? is the first book to explore the diffusion of ideas and norms in the international system from the perspective of local actors, with Asian regional institutions as its main focus.

There's no Asian equivalent of the EU or of NATO. Why has Asia, and in particular Southeast Asia, avoided such multilateral institutions? Most accounts focus on U.S. interests and perceptions or intraregional rivalries to explain the design and effectiveness of regional institutions in Asia such as SEATO, ASEAN, and the ASEAN Regional Forum. Amitav Acharya instead foregrounds the ideas of Asian policymakers, including their response to the global norms of sovereignty and nonintervention. Asian regional institutions are shaped by contestations and compromises involving emerging global norms and the preexisting beliefs and practices of local actors.

Acharya terms this perspective "constitutive localization" and argues that international politics is not all about Western ideas and norms forcing their way into non-Western societies while the latter remain passive recipients. Rather, ideas are conditioned and accepted by local agents who shape the diffusion of ideas and norms in the international system. Acharya sketches a normative trajectory of Asian regionalism that constitutes an important contribution to the global sovereignty regime and explains a remarkable continuity in the design and functions of Asian regional institutions.

Southeast Asia is rapidly becoming a competitive space for geopolitical rivalries. The growth in China-U.S. strategic competition is creating deep anxiety among Southeast Asia leaders, China's rising power is felt across every corner of Southeast Asia, and many leaders are worried about the long-term implications of rising Chinese influence in the region. The United States' increasingly assertive approach towards China is welcomed by some governments, but the growth in tensions is creating deep anxiety about a possible new Cold War. How can the region prevent a repeat of the divisions and bitter rivalries of the previous Cold War? This book argues that Southeast Asia is emerging as an open, autonomous region, where small and middle powers can maintain their sovereignty and shape the regional order. Despite new superpower pressures, the region is moving towards a multi-polar order, with greater agency for Southeast Asian countries. The key to Southeast Asia's future may be other external powers – particularly Japan, Australia, India, and Europe – who can provide ASEAN governments with more diverse partnerships, enabling them to avoid the bipolar blocs of superpower rivalries. The book argues that external partners are helping to shape the geopolitical order by supporting ASEAN leadership and diluting the influence of great powers. Southeast Asian countries also have remarkable capacity to manage asymmetrical relations and balance external powers. The book describes the region’s history of managing great power relations, drawing on historical and contemporary cases. By examining the dynamics between Southeast Asia and external powers, the book predicts that the region’s future will look entirely different from its Cold War past.

As the Cold War raged on in the 1970s and 1980s, much of southern Africa, from Angola to Mozambique, became caught up in the superpower competition as local and regional proxies for both Moscow and Washington fought it out on the battlefield. Thus, the struggle to determine the future of a newly independent Mozambique was shaped by multiple factors beyond the control of its people in the course of its 16-year conflict from 1977-1992\. These factors also contributed to the longevity and ferocity of the Mozambican war that would leave an estimated one million dead, millions more displaced and made homeless, and a country in ruins. From the rise of the Resistencia Nacional Mocambicana, or Renamo, in 1977 as a Rhodesian weapon against Zimbabwean nationalist guerrillas operating in Mozambique, through South African patronage in the 1980s and to Renamo's evolution as a self-sufficient insurgency, the forces of Mozambican nationalism became inexorably intertwined with the geopolitics of the region and the international manifestations of the Cold War. Thus, both government and rebel forces found themselves repeatedly beholden to external interests - be it American, Soviet, Cuban, South African or Rhodesian - as each sought to advance its own agenda and future vision of the country. However, it would be Mozambicans themselves who spilled their blood in a clash of men and arms that spanned the length and breadth of the country. And ultimately this is their story of sacrifice and triumph.

The Middle East and North Africa Region encapsulates many of the issues surrounding water and human mobility. It is the most water-scarce region in the world and is experiencing unprecedented levels of forced displacement. Ebb and Flow: Volume 2. Water in the Shadow of Conflict in the Middle East and North Africa examines the links between water risks (harmful outcomes related to water, from droughts and floods to lack of sanitation), conflict, and forced displacement. It aims to better explain how to address the vulnerabilities of forcibly displaced persons and their host communities, and to identify water policy and investment responses. Contrary to common belief, the report finds that the evidence linking water risks with conflict and forced displacement in the region is not unequivocal. Water risks are more frequently related to cooperation than to conflict at both domestic and international levels. But while conflict is not necessarily a consequence of water risks, the reverse is a real and concerning phenomenon: conflict amplifies water risks. Since 2011, there have been at least 180 instances of intentional targeting of water infrastructure in conflicts in Gaza, Libya, the Syrian Arab Republic, and the Republic of Yemen. Forcibly displaced persons and their host communities face myriad water risks. Access to safe drinking water is a daily struggle for millions of forcibly displaced Iraqis, Libyans, Palestinians, Syrians, Yemenis, and international migrants in the region, heightening public health risks. Tanker trucks often help fill the gap; however, significant issues of water quality, reliability, and affordability remain. Host communities also face localized declines in water availability and quality as well as unplanned burdens on water services following the arrival of forcibly displaced persons. The reality of protracted forced displacement requires a shift from humanitarian support toward a development approach for water security, including structured yet flexible planning to deliver water services and sustain water resources for forcibly displaced persons and their host communities.

From cooperation to a new cold war: is this the future for today's two great powers?. U.S. policy toward China is at an inflection point. For more than a generation, since the 1970s, a near-consensus view in the United States supported engagement with China, with the aim of integrating China into the U.S.-led international order. By the latter part of the 2010s, that consensus had collapsed as a much more powerful and increasingly assertive China was seen as a strategic rival to theUnited States. How the two countries tackle issues affecting the most important bilateral relationship in the world will significantly shape overall international relations for years to come.In this timely book, leading scholars of U.S.-China relations and China's foreign policy address recent changes in American assessments of China's capabilities and intentions and consider potential risks to international security, the significance of a shifting international distribution of power, problems of misperception, and the risk of conflicts. China's military modernization, its advancing technology, and its Belt and Road Initiative, as well as regional concerns, such as the South China Sea disputes, relations with Japan, and tensions on the Korean Peninsula, receive special focus.

The paradox of U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia The Obama administration's pivot-to-Asia policy establishes an important place for Southeast Asia in U.S. foreign policy. But Washington's attention to the region has fluctuated dramatically, from the intense intervention of the cold war era to near neglect in more recent years. As a consequence, countries in Southeast Asia worry that the United States once again will become distracted by other problems and disengage from the region. This book written by an astute observer of the region and U.S. policy casts light on the sources of these anxieties. A main consideration is that it still is not clear how Southeast Asia fits into U.S. strategy for Asia and the broader world. Is the region central to U.S. policymaking, or an afterthought? Ambivalent Engagement highlights a dilemma that is becoming increasingly conspicuous and problematic. Southeast Asia continues to rely on the United States to play an active role in the region even though it is an external power. But the countries of Southeast Asia have very different views about precisely what role the United States should play. The consequences of this ambivalence will grow in importance with the expanding role of yet another outside power, China.

There is a new 'great game' being played in the Buddhist Himalayas between India, China and Tibet, which makes for a crucial third player. Together, they are leveraging their influence with the Buddhist communities to create strategic dominance, with varying degrees of success. China's 'Buddhist diplomacy' has focused on Nepal and Bhutan, and the Indian Himalayan regions of Ladakh, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim, which have sizeable Buddhist populations and are vulnerable to this influence. The crisis in Doklam brought into focus what will be one of the most difficult issues to unfold in the Himalayas in future: India's insufficient ability to deal with China only through the prism of military power. If Xi Jinping, who is known to be working towards a resolution of the Tibet question, succeeds, and the Dalai Lama does indeed return to Tibet, how will it impact Indian interests in the Buddhist Himalayas? If the Tibet issue remains unresolved, how will India and China deal with and leverage the sectarian strife that is likely to intensify in a post-Dalai Lama world? The Great Game in the Buddhist Himalayas includes several unknown insights into the India-China, India-Tibet and China-Tibet relationships. It reads like a geopolitical thriller, taking the reader through the intricacies of reincarnation politics, competing spheres of sacred influence, and monastic and sectarian allegiances that will keep the Himalayas on edge for years to come.

This book views the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a bold and all-encompassing 21st century global effort by China, with unprecedented perspectives. The BRI could be summarised as a 'revitalization' of China's ancient land-based and maritime silk roads, but it should be noted that its impact on China and the world stands on the foundation of omnipresent economics and how China transforms its mindset in the 21st century.Though initiated by China, the BRI's implementation has been a many-to-many effort from the start. This multi-regional and multi-national effort is distinctly different from the one-to-many effort of the Marshall Plan. The two meaning-defining chapters of this book, 'Omnipresent Economics: The Belt and Road Initiative Underpinning' and 'Supercontinent, Neo-Renaissance and Cultural Communications: The Millennium Mindset Transformations Induced by the Belt and Road Initiative', have made it abundantly clear that the BRI discussions presented are unique.The discussions of this book could shed new light on the BRI, a long-term and profound initiative by China, which in today's global discussions and debates, are entirely confined to geopolitical and economics arenas.

South Asia one of the most populous, densely populated and volatile regions in the world remains in a state of `Unpleasant Stability’. Despite rich historical, cultural and political linkages, the region has embarrassingly poor mutual understanding and hence integration. While the failure of South Asia’s desired evolution as a cohesive region can be attributed to several factors ranging from terrorism, strained bilateral relations and the absence of military and strategic cooperation; India’s own engagement in the region has been found wanting, even though it has evolved over the years. A reinvigorated South Asia has the potential to vastly improve the lives of its 1.7 billion citizens – nearly one-fourth of all humanity – particularly India, the largest country of the region. The book is an important and valuable contribution as it attempts to bring under one volume a holistic understanding of the concept of strategic stability in South Asia; opportunities and challenges in the present geopolitical and geo-economic environment; to include rise of religious fundamentalism, strategic alliances / emerging partnerships between countries of the region and extra regional powers. It also analyses and puts forth recommendations for India’s own rise, peace and stability a `sine qua non’ for India to retain its pre–eminence in South Asia.

In the all-encompassing energy realm, powerful state and private actors determine which of the world’s many energy resources are developed ... and how societies are molded to accommodate those decisions. The authors of The Geopolitics of Global Energy Resources delve into the energy realm, identifying the infrastructure investments of today that are shaping the use patterns and political dependencies of tomorrow. They explore as well, the prospects for change to more sustainable and democratically accountable forms of energy. 

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Having emerged from the end of the Cold War as a unified country, Germany has quickly become the second largest exporter in the world. Its economic might has made it the center of the Eurozone and the pivotal power of Europe. Like other geo-economic powers, Germany's foreign policy is characterized by a definition of the national interest in economic terms and the elevation of economic interests over non-economic values such as human rights or democracy promotion. This strategic paradigm is evident in German's relationship with China, the Gulf States and Europe, but it is most important in regard to its evolving policies towards Russia. In this book, Stephen F. Szabo provides a description and analysis of German policy towards Russia, revealing how unified Germany is finding its global role in which its interests do not always coincide with the United States or its European partners. He explores the role of German business and finance in the shaping of foreign policy and investigates how Germany's Russia policy effects its broader foreign policy in the region and at how it is perceived by key outside players such as the United States, Poland and the EU. With reference to public, opinion, the media and think tanks Szabo reveals how Germans perceive Russians, and he uncovers the ways in which its dealings with Russia affect Germany in terms of the importing of corruption and crime. Drawing on interviews with key opinion-shapers, business and financial players and policy makers and on a wide variety of public opinion surveys, media reports and archival sources, his will be a key resource for all those wishing to understand the new geo-economic balance of Europe.

The history of the modern social sciences can be seen as a series of attempts to confront the challenges of social disorder and revolution wrought by the international expansion of capitalist social relations. In Capital, the State, and War, Alexander Anievas focuses on one particularly significant aspect of this story: the inter-societal or geo-social origins of the two world wars, and, more broadly, the confluence of factors behind the Thirty Years’ Crisis between 1914 and 1945. Anievas presents the Thirty Years’ Crisis as a result of the development of global capitalism with all its destabilising social and geopolitical consequences, particularly the intertwined and co-constitutive nature of imperial rivalries, social revolutions, and anti-colonial struggles. Building on the theory of “uneven and combined development,� he unites geopolitical and sociological explanations into a single framework, thereby circumventing the analytical stalemate between “primacy of domestic politics� and “primacy of foreign policy� approaches. Anievas opens new avenues for thinking about the relations among security-military interests, the making of foreign policy, political economy and, more generally, the origins of war and the nature of modern international order.

On February 1, 2021, Myanmar was thrown into a state of crisis by a military coup, abruptly ending a decade of civilian rule. The junta imprisoned the political opposition and deployed lethal force to quell dissent, thinking that most people would meekly acquiesce. However, they underestimated the tenacity of the nascent democracy that had taken root in the last decade. Instead, a civil disobedience movement quickly emerged, with people going on strike across the country to prevent the junta from exerting control, which was soon followed by armed struggle among urban youth. Forging the Nation: Land Struggles in Myanmar’s Transition Period examines how democratic institutions were fought over and built from 2011 to 2020 through the lens of land politics. This book explains how the differences in outcomes in the contest over land are situated in the specific historic and political contexts of Myanmar’s states and regions, despite them being subject to the same national dynamics. As Myanmar is an agriculture-based economy involving two-thirds of the population, land remains a coveted asset in the era of the "global land rush," referring to the intensification of capital’s pursuit of land since the food price surges in 2008–2009. Thus, land is also the ideal lens through which to understand the dynamics of a country that underwent a three-part transition: towards democracy, towards peace with a national ceasefire, and towards open markets after the lifting of sanctions by the West. Against a fraught democratization process that unfolded from 2011 to 2020, Forging the Nation looks at how state and societal actors in Myanmar’s multiethnic society, recovering from over seven decades of civil war, negotiated land politics to shape democratic land institutions. By exploring the interaction of the democratic transition, ethnic politics, and global capital pressures on land across national, regional, and local scales, this book provides an overarching frame that pulls together these three facets that are usually treated separately in the literature. Finally, by emphasizing the co-constituent relationship between democratization and land politics, this book makes a unique contribution to understanding the role of land in political-economic transitions.

With the exception of oceans, boundaries are artificial, man-made divisions of geography that many times make little sense and sometimes no sense at all. For example, why does the northern boundary of Minnesota protrude into Canada? Why does West Virginia have two panhandles? Why do Pennsylvania and Delaware have a common boundary that is a circle segment? Why do the boundaries of Colorado, Wyoming and Utah consist entirely of lines of latitude and longitude? The answers to these questions and many more can be found in this book, which explains why and how state boundaries are placed where they are. It begins with an introduction that provides general information about boundary placement, colonial boundaries, formation of territories, surveying and Supreme Court rulings. The 50 states are divided into ten regions (New England, Mid-Atlantic, Upper South, Lower South, Great Lakes, North Central, South Central, Rocky Mountain, West, and Noncontiguous). The text for each state begins with an overview of that state's boundaries that becomes more specific as its different boundaries are considered. The appendices include interesting facts about each state, citizen and state nicknames, and dates territories were created and states entered the Union. Richly illustrated with 138 maps.

First implemented in 1962, the American embargo against Cuba is one of the most enduring anti-trade measures in human history, having outlived most of the original government and military leaders responsible for its creation. But has it benefited the United States as intended, by weakening Fidel Castro's grip on his country? Or has it, instead, strengthened his position? This unique work draws upon interviews with Cuban exiles to provide broad-ranging insights on the embargo's effects on the Cuban people, and an evaluation of its diminishing role as an effective political tool.

This book shows how power relations that define and challenge the concept of "nation" are played out in and through landscapes.

Has the era of globalization neutralized the institution of "nation?" This thought-provoking book focuses on attempts to build "nation" through landscape. Specifically, it explores strategies employed by Singapore, a multiracial society, to create a Singapore "nation" with an emphasis on the role of landscapes. As such, the authors cast a keen eye on religious buildings, public housing, heritage landscapes, and street name changes as tangible methods of nation-building in a postcolonial society.

The authors point out that notions of "identity" and "nation" are social constructs rooted in history. They then illustrate how "nation" and "national identity" are concepts that are negotiated and disputed by varied social, economic, and political groups -- some of which may actively resist powerful state-centrist attitudes. Throughout this work, the role of the landscape prevails both as a way to naturalize state ideologies and as a means of providing possibilities for reinterpretation in everyday life. Insightful and informative, this is a crucial reference for geographers as well as scholars of international political economy, postcolonial and cultural studies, and Asian history.