The Birth of Territory

Citation

Elden, S. (2013). The Birth of Territory. University of Chicago Press.

Chapter Summary

The book is a history of the concept of territory in Western political thought, from ancient Greece to the seventeenth century. It has an introduction, nine chapters arranged in three parts, and a coda; the main text runs to about 330 pages, followed by notes and a long index. Elden works through historical, political and literary texts, including poets, philosophers, theologians and legal theorists, rather than through a single narrative of state development. The publisher notes that territory is a central political concept that has had less critical attention than sovereignty, rights or justice.

Introduction

Explains why territory matters today and what the book means by it. The introduction argues that work on territoriality, in its biological or social senses, is not the best route to the historically specific category of territory. It examines the related ideas of land and terrain, which it finds essential but insufficient, and proposes that territory is tied to space as a calculative category depending on techniques and legal practices, so that it can be understood as a political technology. It also sets out the method: genealogy, conceptual history and the history of political thought.

Chapter 1: The Polis and the Khora

Part I opens with ancient Greece. The chapter reads Greek myths of autochthony, the poets and historians, and above all Sophocles's Antigone for what they say about place and the polis. It then discusses Kleisthenes's urban reforms of Athens and Plato's Laws and Aristotle's Politics, concluding that the polis is at once a site and a community.

Chapter 2: From Urbis to Imperium

Ancient Rome, through Caesar, Cicero and Tacitus. Two terms receive extended analysis, imperium and limes (frontier), and the chapter shows that translating territorium is not straightforward. It also covers land reform, the founding myth, Octavian and Augustus, and Roman land surveying.

Chapters 3–4: The Fracturing of the West; The Reassertion of Empire

Part II covers the Middle Ages. Chapter 3 treats the early Middle Ages after the collapse of Roman power, reading Augustine, Boethius and Isidore of Seville, the national histories of Gregory of Tours, Bede and others, and the land politics of Beowulf. Chapter 4 turns to the Carolingian Empire: the Donation of Constantine and its exposure as a forgery, Charlemagne's coronation, medieval cartography and feudalism.

Chapters 5–6: The Pope's Two Swords; Challenges to the Papacy

The later Middle Ages. Chapter 5 considers the body politic in John of Salisbury, the claim to temporal and spiritual power in the "two swords" idea, and the rediscovery of Aristotle's Politics through Aquinas and Ptolemy of Lucca. Chapter 6 follows the dispute between Boniface VIII and Philip the Fair and the writings of Giles of Rome, John of Paris, Dante, Marsilius of Padua and William of Ockham.

Chapters 7–9: The Rediscovery of Roman Law; Renaissance and Reconnaissance; The Extension of the State

Part III reaches the early modern period. Chapter 7 shows how Bartolus and Baldus tied territorium to jurisdiction, making territory the object of rule. Chapter 8 links Renaissance thought and the mapping of the New World, argues that Machiavelli lacked a concept of territory, and covers Reformation thinkers, Bodin, Botero and Shakespeare's King Lear. Chapter 9 treats seventeenth-century thinkers, the scientific revolution, Hobbes, Locke and Leibniz, and the fractured geography of the Holy Roman Empire after Westphalia.

Coda: Territory as a Political Technology

Draws the argument together through state practices of cartography, surveying and statistics, concluding that territory is a political technology, a set of techniques for measuring land and controlling terrain.

Key Concepts

Introduction and Chapters 1–2: Concept and method

• Territory as a political technology: techniques of measurement and control, legal as well as technical, rather than simply land.
• Land, terrain and territory: related but distinct notions, with territory dependent on space as a calculative category.
• Genealogy and conceptual history: the methods used to follow how a word, a concept and a practice relate over time.
• Polis and khora; imperium and limes: Greek and Roman terms for community, place, rule and frontier.

Chapters 3–9 and Coda: The long middle

• Two swords: the papal claim to both temporal and spiritual power, and the secular responses.
• Territorium and jurisdiction: the late-medieval legal argument that links territory to the right to rule.
• Reason of state and sovereignty: ideas in Botero and Bodin, set against the problem of land.
• Territorial supremacy: Leibniz's distinction between imperial majesty and princely supremacy.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Philological and historical depth. Reviewers quoted by the publisher stress breadth: Storey in the Journal of Historical Geography notes sources from Shakespeare and Beowulf to Aristotle, and the Geographical Review praises the analysis of difficult questions of meaning and translation while remaining readable.
• A clear thesis. The coda and introduction tie the sequence together: territory is a historically specific political technology, not a timeless fact.
• Sustained attention to terms. The chapters follow how words such as khora, territorium and lo stato were used and translated.
• A usable chronological order. Three parts and chapters of roughly 20–45 pages allow readers to take one period at a time.

Limitations

• Demanding. The Political Geography review quoted by the publisher calls it an outstanding achievement but difficult to place in human geography because of its genealogical engagement with many texts and languages.
• Ends in the seventeenth century. The story stops at Leibniz and the coda's pointers to later state practice; modern borders and colonial territory are largely outside the book.
• Western and textual. It follows Western political thought and written sources; non-Western territorial ideas and map evidence are not the focus.
• Long. About 330 pages of text with extensive notes.

Where It Fits in the Course

Within the course's reading list this is the historical monograph. Painter and Jeffrey's Political Geography and Sara Smith's Political Geography: A Critical Introduction treat territory among many concepts, and Flint and Taylor's textbook uses a world-systems frame; Elden supplies the long history behind the word. Dodds's Geopolitics: A Very Short Introduction and de Blij's Why Geography Matters More Than Ever are shorter and contemporary in focus.

Read it after at least one general textbook, when "territory" has already appeared as a term. It is a good companion to the chapters on state formation and nationalism in Painter and Jeffrey.

How to Use This Book

For graduate students and advanced undergraduates in political geography or political theory with some European history.

A practical plan:

• Core: the Introduction and Coda, which state the argument, then Chapter 7 for the legal turn and Chapter 9 for the early modern settlement.
• By interest: Chapters 1–2 for antiquity, 3–6 for medieval political thought, 8 for the Renaissance and the New World.
• Pairing: read each period chapter with a primary source it discusses, such as Antigone or Dante's Monarchia.