"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."

Bill Rankin,Yale University

"Ranging across disciplines, the authors in this edited volume ask how claims to territorial sovereignty been both made and challenged by maps. The answers—offered by scholars of political science, history, geography, art history, and anthropology—illuminate the varied roles that maps have had across human history. Even more intriguing is the way each essay widens the very definition of a map, and connects the past to current problems of political sovereignty."

Susan Schulten, University of Denver