Books by John Rennie Short

Between 1900 and 2000, more than seventy countries produced a national atlas, an official or quasi-official rendering of the nation-state in maps and accompanying text. This book considers the reasons behind and characteristics of this state-sponsored cartographic explosion. These national atlases mirror and embody some of the important themes of this turbulent century, including the complex connections between nation, state and territory, the rise of state-sponsored science; the growth of nation-states; colonialism and postcolonialism; the geography of biopolitics.

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.

Entirely revised and updated, this reviews the history of the rise and fall of centres of power and draws on a wide range of case studies to illustrate current trends and offers discussion of future developments in a useful, compact form.