From Frontiers to Borders
How Colonial Technicians Created Modern Territoriality

Examines the historical origins and consequences of modern linear boundaries, in global perspective.

Kerry Goettlich (Author)

9781009553001, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 6 November 2025

282 pages
23.5 x 16 x 2 cm, 0.55 kg

'From Frontiers to Borders turns conventional wisdom on its head. Contrary to the perspective that the concept of modern territoriality emanated from Europe, Kerry Goettlich shows how technical, cartographic practices in the colonies influenced spatial imagination in the imperial metropoles. In so doing he exposes the artificiality of territorial claims in general. Anyone interested in how we think about territory and borders should read this insightful book.' Hendrik Spruyt, Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Norman Dwight Harris Chair Emeritus in International Relations, Northwestern University

How did modern territoriality emerge and what are its consequences? This book examines these key questions with a unique global perspective. Kerry Goettlich argues that linear boundaries are products of particular colonial encounters, rather than being essentially an intra-European practice artificially imposed on colonized regions. He reconceptualizes modern territoriality as a phenomenon separate from sovereignty and the state, based on expert practices of delimitation and demarcation. Its history stems from the social production of expertise oriented towards these practices. Employing both primary and secondary sources, From Frontiers to Borders examines how this expertise emerged in settler colonies in North America and in British India – cases which illuminate a range of different types of colonial rule and influence. It also explores some of the consequences of the globalization of modern territoriality, exposing the colonial origins of Boundary Studies, and the impact of boundary experts on the Paris Peace Conference of 1919–20.

Preface
1. The problem of colonial borders: myth and reality
2. Modern territoriality redefined
3. The settler colonies: property surveying scaled up
4. British India and beyond: the orientalism of direct observation
5. The origins of boundary studies: from natural law to modern science
6. The Paris peace conference: the scientific frontier in practice
7. conclusion: the continuing legacies of linear boundaries.

Subject Areas: International relations [JPS]