“A comprehensive, informative and entertaining account of centuries of climate and geopolitical change in the Arctic, and a look at what the future might hold.”—Charlotte Gehrke, Nature
In my book with political geographer Klaus Dodds published in 2025 (Yale University Press), we offer an account of the state of the Arctic today, emphasizing the twin dangers of climate change and geopolitical competition.
Nowhere is the dual threat of climate change and geopolitical contest felt more strongly than in the Arctic. Sea ice is declining rapidly, wildfires are burning, and permafrost is thawing. All the while, global interest is gathering apace as the region transforms from being a frozen desert into an international waterway.
In Unfrozen, which includes 30 color photographs I took and three maps I created, we show how the region is becoming a space of experimentation for everything from Indigenous governance to subsea technologies. Growing geopolitical competition is accompanying environmental disruption. Countries including Russia, China, and the United States are investing in the Arctic and consolidating their interests in strategic access, resource exploitation, and alliance-building.
The consequences of this emerging Arctic Anthropocene are truly global—from rising sea levels due to melting glaciers to tensions between great powers determined to protect their territory and resources, and the well-being of Indigenous Peoples who have fought for centuries for rights and recognition.
Purchase Unfrozen
Yale University Press (UK) (USA) · Bookshop.org · Waterstones · Amazon
Selected photographs and maps
Praise
“The authors . . . are seriously well informed on Arctic affairs. This excellent book is a highly informative guide to both climate change and security issues.”—Michael Burleigh, Literary Review
“As academic researchers in political geography, based at institutions in the US and the UK, [Bennett and Dodds] do not shy away from critiquing the nationalist rhetorics that so often produce discursive triumph in Arctic lands and water.”—Isabelle Gapp, Times Literary Supplement
“Mia Bennett and Klaus Dodds deliver a compelling and timely exploration of one of the planet’s most rapidly transforming regions. As the Arctic melts—literally and metaphorically, the authors chart the geopolitical, environmental, and cultural upheavals reshaping this once remote frontier into a global hotspot.”—Jean-Thomas Nicole, Cipher Brief
“Unfrozen is an intelligent, bold embrace of the Arctic in the Anthropocene—a truly important contribution to the global discourse about the Arctic. Its lucid analysis gracefully weaves the urgent threats of further militarization and total climatic meltdown with the history of the region and the persistent endeavours of the Arctic peoples.”—Martin Breum, author of Cold Rush
“Few books manage to inform, provoke, and enthral in equal measure—but Unfrozen does just that. Bennett and Dodds bring the Arctic to life, not as a distant frontier, but as a living, breathing mosaic of people, politics, and planet. A rare achievement.”—Mads Qvist Frederiksen, Arctic Economic Council
Selected media & podcasts
Unfrozen: The Fight for the Future of the Arctic with Mia Bennett
Second Cold War Observatory, 11 April 2026
Trump, Greenland, The Fight for the Top of the World – Militarization of the Arctic w/ Mia Bennett
Jay Shapiro’s Dilemma Podcast, 13 February 2026
Meltdown: Is it too late for the Arctic?
The Land and Climate Podcast, 19 December 2025
Geopolitics in an unfrozen Arctic: Flashpoints, future scenarios and forces shaping the circumpolar North
Polar Geopolitics, 19 November 2025
Mia Bennett and Klaus Dodds, “Unfrozen: The Fight for the Future of the Arctic” (Yale UP, 2025)
New Books in World Affairs, 13 October 2025