This methodologically oriented chapter starts by defining military concepts: strategy, logistics, tactics, operations. Sun Tzu himself did not distinguish between strategy and tactics, so this is a modern lens on Sun Tzu’s thinking. Next, a standardized five-part format is introduced, to be used to provide uniform structure for the fourteen chapters analyzing fourteen major Sun Tzu themes: (a) list of Sun Tzu passages chosen to illustrate a given theme (just a list, not the passages themselves); (b) Sun Tzu (1) analysis of Sun Tzu’s ideas pertaining to that theme; (c) further Sun Tzu (1) analysis of facets of the given theme that conditions of war and politics in Sun Tzu’s time suggest that Sun Tzu might plausibly have discussed, yet did not discuss; (d) Sun Tzu (2) and (3) "frontiers" of the theme, generalizing Sun Tzu’s relevant ideas in selected Sun Tzu (2) and (3) directions; (e) passages listed in Part (a) (in Griffith’s translation), often with brief commentary . The chapter ends by introducing notational conventions used throughout this study to refer to Griffith verses and passages.

This methodologically oriented chapter starts by defining military concepts: strategy, logistics, tactics, operations. Sun Tzu himself did not distinguish between strategy and tactics, so this is a modern lens on Sun Tzu’s thinking. Next, a standardized five-part format is introduced, to be used to provide uniform structure for the fourteen chapters analyzing fourteen major Sun Tzu themes: (a) list of Sun Tzu passages chosen to illustrate a given theme (just a list, not the passages themselves); (b) Sun Tzu (1) analysis of Sun Tzu’s ideas pertaining to that theme; (c) further Sun Tzu (1) analysis of facets of the given theme that conditions of war and politics in Sun Tzu’s time suggest that Sun Tzu might plausibly have discussed, yet did not discuss; (d) Sun Tzu (2) and (3) "frontiers" of the theme, generalizing Sun Tzu’s relevant ideas in selected Sun Tzu (2) and (3) directions; (e) passages listed in Part (a) (in Griffith’s translation), often with brief commentary . The chapter ends by introducing notational conventions used throughout this study to refer to Griffith verses and passages.

War came to Iran despite its declared neutrality. Ottoman and Russian forces attacked or occupied the northern regions, while Britain expanded its control in the south. The young king, Ahmad Shah, was ill-equipped to rule as rival political leaders emerged. American missionaries documented the devastation of war as Iran suffered from famine and the influenza epidemic. The conclusion of World War I did not bring much support to Iran as its concerns were rebuffed at the Congress of Versailles. A coup brought political change and the end of Qajar rule. The military commander Reza Khan positioned himself as the new leader of Iran, even after the political defeat of the republican movement. Tribal disarmament and state control followed the end of war and the rise of a new monarchy. After the war America considered new opportunities for involvement in Iran.

This chapter is a companion to the previous one and extends many of its themes, but this time in relation to territorial frontiers. ‘Frontiers’, as understand here, are simultaneously geographically peripheral to existing centres of political and economic power, objects of outward expansion and colonisation, and home to both abundant resources and local populations who are routinely marginalised, excluded and sometimes expelled in the name of development. The chapter explores such frontier dynamics in relation to ‘water frontiers’ within Sudan, the Palestinian territories, the Lake Chad region and north-eastern Syria. It shows that frontiers are sites of extreme levels and forms of appropriation, inequality, degradation, conflict and insecurity, as well as resilience and resistance, both in general and in relation to water specifically. And the chapter closes, in line with previous ones, by turning to climate change, noting that frontiers are widely misunderstood within climate crisis discourse – and by reflecting on how they are actually likely to fare as the planet warms.

Pressing geological questions emerged during the early nineteenth-century exploration of the Himalaya, especially around fossils, volcanoes and glaciers. This chapter considers the place of East India Company employees and travellers on the fringes – both geographically and socially – of rapidly evolving debates. The chapter argues that overlapping political frontiers, topographical barriers and ‘cultural borderlands’, all shaped geological practices. The chapter begins with a group of fossils sold by Bhotiyas under the name of bijli ki har or ‘lightning bones’, which reveal tensions between specimens that were both scientifically and cosmologically significant. The chapter also considers the important roles of brokers in locating and transporting fossils, especially by discussing the career of Pati Ram. This is followed by a broader assessment of how these material remains fit into discussions about the upheavement of the Himalaya and notions of a universal deluge. Expanding from fossils, the chapter concludes by examining glaciers (especially debates over their existence in the Himalaya, and evidence of their retreat over both long timescales and within the memories of Himalayan peoples).

This chapter examines East India Company botanical gardens at Saharanpur and Mussoorie. The history of colonial gardens has borne much fruit in recent years, but in the case of India, this has overwhelmingly focused on Calcutta. Instead, this chapter follows the largely untold story of the ‘northern’ gardens, and their roles in the remaking of the Himalaya in European scientific and imperial imaginations. In focusing on the ambiguous position of these gardens – straddling the uplands and lowlands – this chapter demonstrates the inherent complexity in attempts to categorise the vertical globe. The chapter begins with the modification of the existing Mughal garden at Saharanpur for the purposes of scientific botany. Next, it considers debates around the need for a higher garden and the way altitude factored in the acclimatisation of plants. This is followed by a discussion of the centrality of two South Asian gardeners – Hari Singh and Murdan Ali – to the functioning of Saharanpur, and the role of indigenous collectors in the mountains. The final section considers the problems of distance and limited resources as the gardens became spaces for an increasingly globally oriented science.

This chapter provides a historical and theoretical background to the development of the settlements along the Trans-Israel Highway. It explains the geopolitical role of settlements in Israel/Palestine and how their production has transformed during the last century. It then presents key theories on the welfare nation-state and the global turn toward neoliberalism and the market economy, while explaining the Israeli version of the phenomenon. Illustrating the entangled relations between nationalism, territoriality, and privatization, the chapter presents the complexity of the subject and explains the entangled relations between nationalism, territoriality, and privatization. Offering a general view of the development of the different settlement phenomena along the Green Line and the Trans-Israel Highway, this chapter prepares the reader for those that follow, while explaining what makes this area a privately developed national project.

This chapter starts off by discussing the roots of historical anthropology in ‘people’s history’ before the linguistic turn. It then traces the journey from the history workshop movements of the 1960s and 1970s to historical anthropology, focusing on European and Indian groups (the Subaltern Studies Group). It highlights the work of Ann Laura Stoler as an example of how historical anthropology led to new and exciting perspectives in historical writing with deep implications for the deconstruction of historical identities. Historical anthropologists brought with them a concern for the everyday, diversity, performance and resistance and they raised an awareness of the undeterminedness of the past. They also emphasised how collective identities were rooted in constructions of culture. Relating cultural values to practices, diverse theories of the everday examined different structures of power and the agency of ordinary people in resisting and re-appropriating these structures of power. Treating culture as fluid, plural and changing, it also contributed to the de-essentialisation of human identities. Emphasising mimetic processes and the interrelationship of diverse mimetically produced images, historical anthropology also contributed to the decentring of Western perspectives.

This chapter is mainly concerned with the political ideology, norms and behaviour associated with the Byzantine monarchy. It focuses on how the ceremonial and hierarchies of power played out in Constantinople, assessing contemporary expectations of the role and conduct of the emperor. Such expectations were often revealed most clearly in time of instability, as contemporary accounts of coups indicate. The chapter outlines the ceremonial life of the court and discusses the sacred and secular topography of Constantinople as the stage for the continuous display of elite power. The visual and non-verbal qualities to Byzantine ceremonial culture are stressed, as is the centrality of law to imperial authority, political office and spatial organisation. The principal imperial hierarchies of power (military, civil and clerical) and the relationship of the emperor and patriarch are explored, with women and eunuchs seen as integral to the workings of official hierarchies. Alternative concepts of power began to emerge in the later period, when the empire’s territorial integrity was eroding, yet the long-term resilience of traditional ideology, ceremonies and hierarchies is noteworthy.

This chapter examines the impact of Roman imperial expansion on the Atlantic rim of the Roman empire, an “ecological frontier,” so the chapter argues, that traced a natural arc encompassing southern Ireland, southwest Britain, the whole Atlantic coast of Gaul from the Cherbourg Peninsula to the Pyrénées, most of the Iberian Peninsula, and the far northwestern corner of the African continent. A set of case studies illustrates how the territories, resources, and peoples of this ecological frontier zone were integrated into a Roman imperial system centered on the Mediterranean basin. The chapter argues that this Atlantic rim was integrated in a highly differentiated way that not only shattered a preexisting Atlantic world that had been bounded and unified, but also reordered its constituent parts in the service of empire. The chapter’s central thesis, seemingly paradoxical, is that imperial integration and regional fragmentation went together.

This chapter explores the gulf that existed in British India between theories of linear boundaries and unitary sovereign territory on the one hand, and precarious practices of bordering on the other. It analyses three distinct periods of bordering common to the northwest and northeast frontiers. In the mid-nineteenth century, colonial officials sought to instantiate partially porous borders that would provide security while allowing themselves freedom of action in frontier regions. The limitations of these schemes led to a widespread flurry of bordering in the 1860s and 1870s led by administrators ‘on the spot’. Much of this activity contradicted orders from superiors, and took the form of breaking existing boundaries as well as instantiating new ones. A third period, around the turn of the twentieth century, saw heightened attention to international boundaries. These borders remained fragmented and limited. They also had disruptive effects on internal boundaries, reopening questions over where the frontier began.

In the 1840s and 1850s the Russians notionally extended their control much deeper into the steppe, where, after the capture of the Khoqandi fortress of Aq Masjid in 1853, they attempted to consolidate a new frontier along the line of the Syr-Darya, to the east of the Aral Sea. The new fortresses at Raim, Kazalinsk, Karmakchi and Perovsk were islands of Russian sovereignty in an inhospitable landscape of salt-flats, marshland and desert, subject to extremes of cold and heat. Supplying their garrisons was difficult and expensive, and threw the Russians into dependence on Bukharan grain-traders and Qazaq pastoralists. Soldiers were bored out of their minds, and deliberately wounded themselves or deserted to the Khoqandi outposts to the south. While the Syr-Darya frontier was reasonably effective as a listening-post for Russian intelligence and resisted attacks from Khoqand, neither Cossacks nor peasants could be persuaded to settle there, and the costs of occupation far outweighed any revenue. By the late 1850s some voices were calling for a retreat to the Orenburg line, but a familiar argument – that of prestige – won the day, and instead an advance to Tashkent began to seem like the best way of escaping this ‘particularly painful place’.

The decisions which triggered the Russian conquest of Central Asia were taken by the generation of soldiers and statesmen who came of age during the Napoleonic Wars – Nesselrode, Chernyshev, Speranskii and above all Count Vasily Perovskii, Governor of Orenburg during the 1830s. This chapter argues that Russia’s victory against Napoleon transformed the self-perception of the Empire’s ruling elite: Russia was now unquestionably a European Great Power, and as such the constant raiding, rebellion and other forms of ‘insolence’ on her steppe frontier could no longer be tolerated. An account of Russian relations with Persia and Afghanistan is followed by an overview of the empire’s relationship with the Qazaqs from the early eighteenth to the early nineteenth century, and the growing Russian frustration with the khanate of Khoqand, and above all with Khiva.