The Conquest of the Russian Arctic. By Paul J. Josephson (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 2014) 441 pp. $55.00

The Arctic has attracted considerable attention in recent years due to its geopolitical and geostrategic importance. Russia, as this book ably demonstrates, has a long, close, and often-strained relationship with the region stretching back to the late tsarist period. Given that a significant chunk of Russia’s territory is situated within the Arctic Circle, it is little wonder that the region emerged to play an influential role in shaping the development of the country. Josephson sets himself the ambitious task of reflecting critically on Russia’s changing relationship with the Arctic from the late nineteenth century to the present day. Much of the analysis falls inevitably on the Soviet period when the Arctic region became embroiled in the country’s all-consuming efforts to construct a communist society. The harshness of the region with its desperately cold winters and brief summers encouraged a similarly brutal response from the Soviet regime in many instances. It...