Landlocked

Reviews / Votes

"In Landlocked, Schmidt offers a profound rethinking of the politics of extraction by turning to Alberta-too often overlooked in global energy debates-as a key site for understanding how states secure and sustain political legitimacy. Tracing the intertwined histories of water and oil, Schmidt shows how geoscientific knowledge has been central to shaping relations to land, Indigenous dispossession, and the governance of resources. Alberta emerges as both a local case and a global index of how environmental knowledge underwrites political authority. Both conceptually ambitious and empirically rich, Landlocked provides a powerful new framework for grasping the planetary stakes of energy, territory, and state power." -- Imre Szeman, author of "Futures of the Sun: The Struggle over Renewable Life" "Schmidt's Landlocked recasts Alberta's political story as a compelling interplay of oil, land, water, and the geological past. Schmidt shows how oil became an emblem of provincial identity and a claim to political legitimacy, and he introduces the concept of 'landlocked thought' to illuminate how patterns of extraction shape governance, Indigenous dispossession, and environmental decision making. Focusing on the development of Alberta's two most valuable natural resources, Schmidt demonstrates how water and oil helped shape Canada's settlement, legal regimes, and energy strategies, and how Alberta drew on global science, norms, and technologies to sustain its claims. Rigorous, richly researched, and intellectually ambitious, Landlocked offers a powerful new framework for understanding the ties between environmental knowledge and political authority and will reward scholars and engaged readers in energy policy, political history, and environmental studies." -- Paul Chastko, author of "The Boom: Oil, Popular Culture, and Politics in Alberta, 1912-1924"