Very Short Introductions

Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring The Arctic is demanding global attention. It is warming, melting, and thawing in a manner that threatens fundamental state-change. For communities that call the Arctic ''home'' this is unwelcome. A warming Arctic brings with it the spectre of costly disruption and interference in indigenous lives and communal welfare. For others, the disappearance of sea ice makes the Arctic appear more accessible and less remote. This also brings with it dangers such as the prospect of a new era of great power rivalries involving China, Russia, and the United States. Submarine and long-range bomber patrolling are now commonplace. New terms such as ''global Arctic'' are being used to capture the dynamic of change while others muse about the ''return of a Cold War''. The reality is inevitably more complex. The physical geography of the Arctic is highly varied and variable. Environmental change brings