Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 226
•
Trim: 6¼ x 9½
978-1-4422-6667-4 • Hardback • September 2016 • $116.00 • (£89.00)
978-1-4422-6668-1 • eBook • September 2016 • $110.00 • (£85.00)
Colin Flint is a political geographer and professor in the Department of Political Science, Utah State University.
List of Figures
Acknowledgments
Chapter One: Introduction: The Mulberry Harbours and Ways to Think About War
Chapter Two: Geopolitical Constructs: Understanding Global Geopolitical
Change
Chapter Three: The Scope of the Mulberry Harbour Project: Demanded by
Strategy, Made by Committee
Chapter Four: Bureaucratic Construct: “Millions spent on a plan which had not
been approved”
Chapter Five: Good Geopolitical Subjects: “Did we, Sir, do well?”
Chapter Six: The Business of Making the Mulberry Harbours: “War may be
an intensification in the development of our lives”
Chapter Seven: Making Places: “You are probably aware that a scheme has been
prepared”
Chapter Eight: Making Regions: From “bridge” to “unsinkable aircraft carrier”
Chapter Nine: Conclusion: The Legacies of Geopolitical Constructs
Bibliography
About the Author
An impressive tour de force. Relying on meticulous research and unpublished archival material, Flint manages the daunting task of bringing a fresh and interesting insight to the events of D-Day. He does so by providing a multi-layered approach, which emphasizes the key social, political, economic, and geopolitical developments that were required in order to turn Churchill’s vision of temporary harbors into actual bridges for the invasion of the Continent. He also does so by questioning the way in which we conceptualize war as events with well-defined geographies and timeframes. . . . By its interdisciplinary nature, [this book will] be a great source for scholars focused on European history, geography and politics in the twentieth century.
— Europe Now
In sum, Geopolitical Constructs: The Mulberry Harbours, World War Two, and the Making of a Militarized Transatlantic is an impressive tour de force. Relying on meticulous research and unpublished archival material, Flint manages the daunting task of bringing a fresh and interesting insight to the events of D-Day.... [T]his book... should, by its inter-disciplinary nature, be a great source for scholars focused on European history, geography and politics in the twentieth Century.
— Europe Now
In this meticulously detailed book, Colin Flint draws on extensive archival records to document the social and institutional networks that make war possible and in turn demonstrates how geopolitical subjects are themselves transformed by war. Geopolitical Constructs is a pathbreaking book that combines rigorous scholarship and theoretical acumen with skilled storytelling.
— James Tyner, Kent State University
Geopolitical Constructs is a prime example of how the study of geopolitics has been bursting out of its traditional narrow perspectives. Colin Flint takes a crucial military event and contextualizes it in all its political, economic, and social complexity. The result of this well-researched study is an invaluable addition to our understanding of a widely known event that is both convincing and illuminating.
— Peter Taylor
Colin Flint’s new book excavates the history of World War Two in ways that will be surprising to many people who thought they knew that history forward and backward. More importantly, he does so in a way that provocatively highlights the material infrastructures that stitched together the transatlantic alliance and re-made the postwar geopolitical order.
— Jason Dittmer, University College London
Colin Flint’s Geopolitical Constructs provides an innovative, and at times, heart-felt examination of the men and women responsible for the invention and implementation of the Mulberry Harbours – a set of artificial harbours integral to D-Day planning. Both historical and geographical, it shows what can be done when you follow people, objects and places and their mutual entanglements. The Mulberry Harbours may not be as well-known as the Bailey bridge but it was integral to Allied efforts to defeat Nazi Germany. Highly recommended.
— Klaus Dodds, Royal Holloway University of London; author of Border Wars
Introduces the concept of geopolitical constructs
Describes the role of the Mulberry Harbours in D-Day
Provides a history of the militarized trans-Atlantic
Draws on previously unpublished archival analysis
Focuses on the actions of engineers, business leaders, and citizens in making war
First book to integrate a theoretical approach with a history of the Mulberry Harbours