Frozen Assets

Frigga Kruse’s doctoral thesis on the history of British mining, exploration, and geopolitics on Spitsbergen in the first half of the 20th century is published as Volume Nine of the University of Groningen’s Circumpolar Studies Series.

Readers will immediately recognize this work as an unrevised dissertation with all the strengths and weaknesses this genre entails. The structure is somewhat formulaic, the introduction is highly theoretical, and the text is quite long.

But this is a fascinating and highly original work that will be of great interest to historians of Spitsbergen/Svalbard, as well as to historians of the Arctic in general. In particular, it offers an excellent example of the innovative work of the Large-scale Historical Exploitation of Polar Areas (LASHIPA) project, which came out of the International Polar Year of 2007–08 and combines historical archeology with extensive archival research.

More information about the book.