This major reference collection highlights the contested and diverse nature of geopolitics and charts the controversial intellectual history of the field. Coined by the Swedish author, Rudolf Kjellén, the term 'geopolitics' highlights the role that territory, resources and boundaries play in shaping global political relations. The collection brings together work from international relations, political science, history, geography and law into a definitive collection that covers three dimensions of the geopolitical:

" 'Classic geopolitics' examines the impact of physical geography on political actions.
" 'Critical geopolitics', a parallel strand to the 'classical' tradition, challenges the notion of geography as a passive backdrop to international affairs and examines the socially constructed nature of geographical claims.
" 'Popular geopolitics' looks at geopolitics as it has been presented outside of the formal academic arena, for example in popular journals such as Life or Reader's Digest