Unsettling Sovereignty
International Law, Nuclear Weapons, and US Extraterritorial Power in Postwar Oceania
$171.60
- Hardcover
320 pages
- Release Date
2 November 2026
Summary
Marshall Islanders and their ancestral lands and waters played important roles in reshaping the United States’ offshore power, state sovereignty, and the international politics of decolonization.
In the years following World War II, the United States conducted sixty-seven devastating nuclear blasts in the Marshall Islands-yet the archipelago was never a US territory. Working through the United Nations, US diplomats engineered a new, one-of-a-kind extraterritorial stat…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780226852478 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 0226852474 |
| Author: | M.X. Mitchell |
| Publisher: | The University of Chicago Press |
| Imprint: | University of Chicago Press |
| Format: | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages: | 320 |
| Release Date: | 2 November 2026 |
| Weight: | 454g |
| Dimensions: | 152mm x 229mm |
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Critics Review
“Unsettling Sovereignty is a magisterial account of the struggles over US military colonialism in Micronesia after World War II, as the Marshall Islands became a so-called proving ground for nuclear test detonations. Mitchell traces the political and material consequences of US jurisdiction and ongoing nuclear blasting, as well as the legal conflicts these events set off. Ultimately, Marshall Islanders used US environmental law to win recognition of their rights, negotiate sovereignty, and forge the Marshallese state. This is essential reading for scholars and students in history of American science, legal history, and environmental studies.”
– Angela N. H. Creager, Princeton University“US nuclear explosions in the Marshall Islands during the Cold War were not only catastrophically destructive, but also an occasion for the creation of law as Pacific Islanders fought to retain sovereignty over their homelands, Mitchell shows in this brilliant and original book. Unsettling Sovereignty puts the Islanders at the center of US nuclear history. A powerful and important contribution.”
– Mary L. Dudziak, Emory UniversityM.X. Mitchell
M. X. Mitchell is assistant professor in the federated department of history at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and Rutgers Newark.
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