Recent years have witnessed the most substantial changes in the world system of states and their boundaries since World War II. The key division between the states in the world system the former deep ideological divide between East and West has disappeared. The border between Finland and Russia was a frontier between East and West and had a long history as a fundamental dividing line between contrasting cultural and political systems. Territories, Boundaries and Consciousness is the first geographical analysis of how this critical border evolved. This original and well-illustrated book is...

This book offers a substantial and up-dated discussion and presentation of the new European frontiers related to complex and controversial social and spatial (re)integration issues in multicultural and border regions. It represents an inter-disciplinary endeavour from human geographers, social and political scientists, and linguists to understand and interpret the current developments of the European unity in diversity paradigm, based on simultaneous and continuous processes of social and spatial convergence and divergence, changing territorialities and identities, particularly in the wider...