03/31/2021: The Frontier Complex with author Kyle J. Gardner

The Sigur Center for Asian Studies will host our non-resident scholar Kyle J. Gardner to launch his new book, The Frontier Complex: Geopolitics and the Making of the India-China Border, 1846-1962, as the third edition of the 2021 New Books in Asian Studies series. This event will also feature Dr. Bérénice Guyot-Réchard of King’s College London as a discussant, Sigur Center Director Benjamin D. Hopkins as a moderator, and an introduction by the Dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs, Alyssa Ayres.

Gardner reveals the transformation of the historical Himalayan entrepôt of Ladakh into a modern, disputed borderland through an examination of rare British, Indian, Ladakhi, and Kashmiri archival sources. In doing so, he provides both a history of the rise of geopolitics and the first comprehensive history of Ladakh’s encounter with the British Empire. He examines how colonial border-making practices transformed geography into a political science and established principles that a network of imperial frontier experts would apply throughout the empire and bequeath to an independent India.

Through analyzing the complex of imperial policies and practices, The Frontier Complex reveals how the colonial state transformed, and was transformed by, new ways of conceiving of territory. Yet, despite a century of attempts to craft a suitable border, the British failed. The result is an imperial legacy still playing out across the Himalayas. Gardner has shared his expertise of the Ladakh region following the China-India border clashes last year on Deutsche Welle TV, Times of India, Observer Research Foundation, and more.

The Frontier Complex: Geopolitics and the Making of the India-China Border, 1846-1962 is available from Cambridge University Press with a 20% discount using code FRCO2021.