北極点とその周辺の地域は非常に複雑な背景を持つ地域です。近年、温暖化の影響で海氷の減少によりこの地域がより「開かれ」たことにより、ここに暮らす先住民をはじめとする400万人の生活が脅かされ、天然資源や航路をめぐり米中露がつばぜり合いを繰り広げています。本書ではこの地域の文化的、物理的、政治的特色や原動力、経済的変動といった地政学・環境的課題と懸案を吟味し、すべての人に影響を及ぼしうる北極圏の未来を熟考します。(cf. Arctic: What Everyone Needs to Know)
 

• Offers a contemporary geopolitical and cultural commentary of the Arctic
• Discusses the physical geography of the region, and current and future environmental concerns
• Brings together the various competing elements surrounding the Arctic to offer a rich discussion of the current issues for the region

    
The Arctic is demanding global attention. It is warming, melting, and thawing in a manner that threatens fundamental state-change. For communities that call the Arctic 'home' this is unwelcome. A warming Arctic brings with it the spectre of costly disruption and interference in indigenous lives and communal welfare. For others, the disappearance of sea ice makes the Arctic appear more accessible and less remote. This also brings with it dangers such as the prospect of a new era of great power rivalries involving China, Russia, and the United States. Submarine and long-range bomber patrolling are now commonplace. New terms such as 'global Arctic' are being used to capture the dynamic of change while others muse about the 'return of a Cold War'.
   
The reality is inevitably more complex. The physical geography of the Arctic is highly varied and variable. Environmental change brings opportunities for indigenous and non-indigenous life-forms to survive and even thrive. The Arctic's four million people are not helpless pawns in a game of global geopolitics. The Arctic is not only a resource hotspot but also a place where sustainable energy systems are being introduced. A warming Arctic with less ice and permafrost is not unique in the longer history of the Earth either.
   
The Arctic is a complex space. In this Very Short Introduction, Klaus Dodds and Jamie Woodward consider the major dimensions of the region and the linkages beyond - from the geopolitical to the environmental. They examine the causes, drivers, and effects of cultural, physical, political, and economic change, and ponder the future of the Arctic. As they show, it is a future which will affect us all.