Book ID: CBB001422068

The Conquest of the Russian Arctic (2014)

unapi

Josephson, Paul R. (Author)


Harvard University Press


Publication Date: 2014
Physical Details: viii + 441 pp.; ill.; maps; notes; index
Language: English

Spanning nine time zones from Norway to the Bering Strait, the immense Russian Arctic was mostly unexplored before the twentieth century. This changed rapidly in the 1920s, when the Soviet Union implemented plans for its conquest. The Conquest of the Russian Arctic, a definitive political and environmental history of one of the world's remotest regions, details the ambitious attempts, from Soviet times to the present, to control and reshape the Arctic, and the terrible costs paid along the way. Paul Josephson describes the effort under Stalin to assimilate the Arctic into the Soviet empire. Extraction of natural resources, construction of settlements, indoctrination of nomadic populations, collectivization of reindeer herding---all was to be accomplished so that the Arctic operated according to socialist principles. The project was in many ways an extension of the Bolshevik revolution, as planners and engineers assumed that policies and plans that worked elsewhere in the empire would apply here. But as they pushed ahead with methods hastily adopted from other climates, the results were political repression, destruction of traditional cultures, and environmental degradation. The effects are still being felt today. At the same time, scientists and explorers led the world in understanding Arctic climes and regularities. Vladimir Putin has redoubled Russia's efforts to secure the Arctic, seen as key to the nation's economic development and military status. This history brings into focus a little-understood part of the world that remains a locus of military and economic pressures, ongoing environmental damage, and grand ambitions imperfectly realized.

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Reviewed By

Review Per Högselius (2015) Review of "The Conquest of the Russian Arctic". Technology and Culture (pp. 761-763). unapi

Review Pincus, Rebecca (2015) Review of "The Conquest of the Russian Arctic". Environmental History (pp. 838-839). unapi

Review Jenks, Andrew L. (2015) Review of "The Conquest of the Russian Arctic". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 497-498). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001422068/

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Authors & Contributors
Sörlin, Sverker
Bathsheba Demuth
Bockstoce, John R.
Grant, Bruce
Miller, Emelin
McCahey, Daniella
Concepts
Indigenous peoples; indigeneity
Travel; exploration
Imperialism
Environmental history
Inuit Indians
Science and politics
Time Periods
20th century
20th century, early
19th century
21st century
20th century, late
18th century
Places
Arctic regions
Soviet Union
Russia
United States
Norway
Canada
Institutions
International Geophysical Year (IGY)
Kaiser-Wilhelm-Instituten
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