1. Introduction Peder Roberts and Adrian Howkins; 2. “I watch to see how the land is changing”: An Inuit perspective on changing environments and cultural resilience in the western Canadian Arctic George Angohiatok, Bryan Vandenbrink, Ian Hogg, and Thomas McIlwraith; 3. The evolution of the Antarctic continent and its ice sheet Martin Siegert and Andrew Fountain; 4. The initial peopling of the circumpolar north Bjarne Grønnow; 5. Archaeology, politics, and Sámi heritage Carl-Gösta Ojala; 6. The Norse settlement of Greenland Jette Arneborg; 7. Russia, the first Arctic empire, 1000–1917 Ryan Tucker Jones, Alexei Kraikovski, and Julia Lajus; 8. The discovery of Antarctica from Ptolemy to Shackleton Cornelia Lüdecke and Erki Tammiksaar; 9. Sir John Franklin and the Northwest Passage in myth and memory Russell A. Potter; 10. The heroic age of Antarctic exploration, 1890 to the present Stephanie Barczewski; 11. Representing the polar regions through historical fiction Elizabeth Leane; 12. Geography, anthropology, and Arctic knowledge-making Richard C. Powell; 13. Britain's polar empire, 1769–1982 Daniella McCahey; 14. Canada and the high Arctic islands, 1880–1950 Janice Cavell; 15. The genesis of the Spitsbergen/Svalbard Treaty, 1871–1920 Roald Berg; 16. Industrial whaling in the Arctic and Antarctic Bjørn L. Basberg and Louwrens Hacquebord; 17. A historical archaeology of the first Antarctic labourers (ninteenth century) Melisa A. Salerno, M. Jimena Cruz, and Andrés Zarankin; 18. Mining and colonialism in the circumpolar north Henrik Knudsen, Arn Keeling, and John Sandlos; 19. Creating the Soviet Arctic, 1917–1991 Andy Bruno and Ekaterina Kalemeneva; 20. Greenland: From colony to self-government, 1721–2021 Jens Heinrich; 21. Cold War environmental knowledge in the polar regions Stephen Bocking and Pey-Yi Chu; 22. The international geophysical year and the Antarctic treaty system Klaus Dodds; 23. The first century of US militarization in Alaska, 1867–1967 Matthew Farish; 24. Petroleum development and the state in Arctic North America, 1919–1977 Philip A. Wight; 25. The rise of circumpolar political movements Mark Nuttall; 26. The history of polar environmental governance Alessandro Antonello and Justiina Dahl; 27. The Antarctic extension of Latin America Pablo Fontana; 28. Moving muskoxen as an Arctic resource in the twentieth century Dolly Jørgensen; 29. Boundaries of place and time at the edge of the polar oceans Hayley Brazier and Mark Carey; 30. Restorying from within: Renewing relationships beyond the shadows of polar history Jackie Price, Rebecca Mearns, and Emilie Cameron; 31. Conclusion Liza Piper and Lize-Marié van der Watt.