This strikingly colorful volume contends that modern mapping has never been sufficient to illustrate the complex reality of territory and political sovereignty, whether past or present. For Territorial Imaginaries, editor Kären Wigen has assembled an impressive slate of experts, spanning disciplines as far apart as political science and art history, to contribute perspectives and case studies covering three main themes: mapping before the nation-state, rethinking and critiquing mapping practices, and robust traditions of counter-cartography.

Each contributor proposes alternative ways to map, supporting their essays with rich archival documentation. Among the far-reaching case studies are Barbara Mundy's cartographic history of Indigenous dispossession in the Americas, Peter Bol's examination of two Chinese maps created five hundred years apart, and Ali Yaycıoğlu's exploration of tensions between top-down and bottom-up mapping of Habsburg and Ottoman border claims.