Polar Imperative

Based on Shelagh Grant's groundbreaking archival research and drawing on her reputation as a leading historian in the field, Polar Imperative is a compelling overview of the historical claims of sovereignty over this continent's polar regions. This engaging, timely history examines:
the unfolding implications of major climate changes
the impact of resource exploitation on the indigenous peoples
the current high-stakes game for control over the adjacent waters of Alaska, Arctic Canada and Greenland
the events, issues and strategies that have influenced claims to authority over the lands and waters of the North American Arctic, from the arrival of the first inhabitants around 3,000 BCE to the present
sovereignty from a comparative point of view within North America and parallel situations in the European and Asian Arctic
This book will become a standard reference on Arctic history and will redefine North Americans' understanding of the sovereign rights and responsibilities of Canada's northernmost region.

Shelagh D. Grant is the author of the Clio Award-winning Arctic Justice: On Trial for Murder, Pond Inlet 1923; Sovereignty or Security? Government Policy in the Canadian North, 1936-1950; and more recently, Mittimatalik-Pond Inlet: A History, translated into Inuktitut. She is an adjunct professor in the Canadian Studies Program and research associate of the Frost Centre for Canadian Studies at Trent University, and she lives in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada.