About this book:

*Maps of Empire* explores how the Soviet Union utilized cartography, border-making, and spatial planning to transform the vast Eurasian landmass into a legible and governable "imperial grid." The book argues that despite the state’s anti-imperial rhetoric, it employed deeply imperial techniques to sort populations, extract resources, and project power. By tracing the evolution of mapping from late Tsarist surveys to the digital and satellite age, the narrative demonstrates how the act of drawing lines on paper was inseparable from the political act of state-building, turning abstract ideological goals into material realities such as republican borders, industrial cities, and massive hydraulic projects.

The text examines the "cartographic constitution" of the USSR, illustrating how internal borders and ethnic territories were meticulously constructed to manage diversity and centralize control. It delves into the secrecy regimes that governed Soviet space, where "closed cities" were airbrushed from public maps while being hyper-mapped in classified military archives. From the frozen frontiers of the Arctic and the forced labor geographies of the Siberian Gulag to the irrigated cotton empires of Central Asia, the book shows how the state used spatial statistics and thematic mapping to treat the landscape as a giant, calculable spreadsheet for economic mobilization.

As the 20th century progressed, the book highlights the friction between the state’s idealized plans and the stubborn reality of the terrain. It covers the pivotal role of war cartography during the Great Patriotic War, the expansion of the Soviet sphere into Eastern Europe, and the eventual rise of "counter-maps" and cartographic dissent during the era of Glasnost. These unofficial geographies challenged the state's monopoly on spatial truth, exposing environmental degradation and national aspirations that the official grid had long sought to suppress.

The final chapters address the collapse of the Soviet Union and the "afterlives" of its imperial grid. It describes how the administrative lines of the Soviet era were suddenly transformed into the international frontiers of fifteen independent states, often leading to "frozen conflicts" and border disputes that persist today. Ultimately, *Maps of Empire* provides a comprehensive look at how the Soviet geopolitical imagination shaped the physical and mental landscapes of Eurasia, leaving behind a legacy of spatial organization that continues to define post-Soviet identity and politics.

What You'll Find Inside:

• Soviet cartography actively produced governable space by transforming landscapes into plans and populations into statistics through an 'imperial grid' of maps, registries, and regulations.
• The book traces how economic planning (Five-Year Plans), security imperatives (closed cities, military secrecy), and nationality policy (ethnic border-drawing) were all mediated through cartographic practices across Eurasia.
• Maps served as both tools of state control and sites of resistance, with counter-maps, samizdat, and local practices continually challenging official cartographic visions.
• Soviet mapping revealed fundamental tensions between ideological ambitions and environmental/human realities, as seen in projects like the Aral Sea diversion and Gulag geography.
• The imperial grid's spatial legacies persisted after 1991, shaping post-Soviet borders, infrastructure disputes, and contemporary conflicts from the Caucasus to Central Asia.

Who's It For:

This book will be most valuable to scholars and graduate students of Soviet history, historical geography, and the history of science and technology. Researchers interested in empire studies, border formation, and the relationship between ideology and spatial practices will find particular relevance in its analysis of how maps functioned as tools of state-making and resistance across the Soviet Union's vast territory.