Undersea Geopolitics

Sealab, Science, and the Cold War

Rachael Squire author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Rowman & Littlefield

Published:27th Feb '23

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

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Undersea Geopolitics cover

This book furthers academic scholarship in cutting-edge areas of geographical and geopolitical writing by drawing on a series of little-studied undersea living projects conducted by the US Navy during the Cold War (Project Genesis, Sealab I, II and III). Supported by an engaging and novel empirical setting, the central themes of the book revolve around the practice and construct of ‘territory’, ‘terrain’, the ‘elemental’ and the interrelationships between these material phenomenon and both human and non-human bodies. Furthermore, the book will point to future research trajectories in the form of ‘extreme geographies’ to better understand living practices in a world that is increasingly submerged and extreme.

Extending critical geopolitical analysis to investigate an unlikely venue, Rachel Squire brilliantly shows how American cold war geopolitical culture was a combination of science, masculinity and exploration. This fascinating account of a nearly forgotten scientific project explores the underwater world of Sealab, its aquanauts, scientists and their dangerous experimental habitat, built in the quest to dominate the frontier space of the ocean.

-- Simon Dalby, Balsillie School of International Affairs, Wilfrid Laurier University

A fascinating study of a little-known story in the Cold War. Using archival and other historical sources, Squire takes us beneath the surface to explore the world of Sealab with its multiple geographies. Engagingly written and conceptually innovative, this is an important contribution to political geography and wider debates about territory, volume and materiality.

-- Stuart Elden, Professor of Political Theory and Geography, University of War

ISBN: 9781538156988

Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 11mm

Weight: 299g

180 pages