In the abrasive new world of strongman leaders, international institutions have lost leverage and NGOs have struggled to get a hearing (many illiberal regimes have banned them as alien influences). As the authors of this fascinating book on the Arctic argue, collaborative governance of the global commons has also atrophied. The global commons is generally understood to comprise the atmosphere, outer space, the high seas and Antarctica. The Arctic, strictly speaking, does not form part of it – the region comprises icy extensions of eight sovereign states – but the authors make a case for its inclusion in the category. Inuit and Sami people represent roughly 10 per cent of the four million inhabitants of the Arctic. The majority, however, are incomers working in the fish and oil industries. Bizarrely, a sizeable number of Thai remittance labourers are employed picking valuable ‘superfood’ cloudberries in mosquito-infested swamps.

The authors, the geographer Mia Bennett and the geopolitics expert Klaus Dodds, are seriously well informed on Arctic affairs. They touch on a variety of subjects, ranging from the plight of disoriented reindeer herders whose trails have thawed to passengers on giant cruise ships – some ten million tourists visit the Arctic each year – being told not to take photographs of indigenous primary school children. 

The authors give equal consideration to the melting of the ice, leading to the contraction of a once forbiddingly beautiful physical environment, and the danger of the Arctic becoming a venue for great-power conflict. The melting of the cryosphere (the Arctic Ocean is the fastest-warming ocean in the world) has