Although this project has involved a lot of time working alone, with stacks of books, there is no way I could have completed it without the help of many people.

This book began as a dissertation at the University of California, Berkeley, so my first debt of gratitude is to my dissertation committee: Steve Weber, Chris Ansell, Ron Hassner, and Kate O’Neill. Nick Ziegler also served as a member of my prospectus committee, helping to get the project off the ground. Chris Ansell was instrumental, from the very beginning of this project, in helping me negotiate the back-and-forth between extreme breadth and complexity and making a coherent and defensible argument. Ron Hassner’s enthusiasm and help have been amazing – who else, after all, combines such a depth of knowledge about our field, a limitless willingness to help, and an impressive collection of antique maps? Kate O’Neill provided extremely useful feedback in spite of facing the monumental task of reading an entire dissertation in one go, rather than in a more civilized piecemeal fashion. Finally, I could not have asked for a better dissertation chair than Steve Weber. From the very beginning, Steve provided me with exactly the type of guidance that I needed, allowing me the freedom to pursue whatever wild ideas came up, but keeping my historical study grounded in the key issues of International Relations. Steve was the kind of advisor I could – and did – call to ask about how to phrase specific parts of a response letter for an article revision. His support has been priceless.

My fellow graduate students at Berkeley have also earned my thanks – for transforming classes, exam preparations, and everything else that could make graduate school a burden into positive experiences. Jessica Rich and Naomi Choi deserve special mention as close friends who have always put up with me and as colleagues who have given me honest and supportive feedback on my work. In addition, the broader International Relations community at Berkeley, including the numerous students and faculty affiliated with the Institute for International Studies, provided a stimulating environment for exchanging ideas and papers – even for someone like me, whose work has sometimes been at the periphery of our field. (The Institute for International Studies also funded part of the research for this book.)

In 2011, I was extremely fortunate to receive the Hayward R. Alker Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Center for International Studies at the University of Southern California. The year I spent there allowed me the time, resources, and support needed to convert a somewhat unwieldy dissertation into a focused and vastly improved book. Particularly valuable were the support and feedback I received from Patrick James, the director of the Center, and from many of the faculty in USC’s School of International Relations (including, in particular, Mai’a Cross, Robert English, Brian Rathbun, and Ann Tickner). In addition, while at USC, I was fortunate to be able to meet with Nicholas Onuf, who provided invaluable comments on this project, as well as sage advice that was particularly helpful to a new Ph.D.

In 2012 I joined the political science department at Brown University, where I finished the revisions on this book. My colleagues at Brown immediately welcomed me and made me feel like a valued member of the department; they have helped make the transition to being a faculty member completely painless. The students in my fall 2012 “Maps and Politics” class were also helpful in their questioning of the arguments in this book. I am extremely pleased to have finished this project – and to begin new ones – in this friendly and rich academic environment.

Additionally, this project benefited from the extensive pushing, prodding, and questioning that I have faced at a number of venues outside Berkeley, USC, and Brown when speaking at conferences and at other universities, including the political science departments at George Washington University, Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Toronto. When you start talking about maps, people become interested, and I have always benefited from the incisive comments, questions, and suggestions that I have received. Others who provided valuable advice include Daniel Nexon, Hein Goemans, Christian Reus-Smit, and Jeppe Strandsbjerg. Also helpful was the extensive feedback from reviewers and editors at International Organization and the European Journal of International Relations, where some of this book’s arguments have previously appeared (reprinted with permission from: “Mapping the Sovereign State: Technology, Authority, and Systemic Change,” International Organization 65(1), Winter 2011; “‘Colonial Reflection’ and Territoriality: The Peripheral Origins of Sovereign Statehood,” European Journal of International Relations 18(2), June 2012). The questions and suggestions of the two anonymous readers of the book manuscript also improved the final product immensely. John Haslam at Cambridge University Press has guided the book through the publication process flawlessly, and, from our very first meeting, his enthusiasm for this project has been invaluable.

Finally, I have to thank the people who have made it possible for me to bring this project to fruition. Helen Lee, whom I had the unbelievable good fortune to meet in a graduate seminar on research methods (of all places!), gives me the kind of support and encouragement that one can only dream of. My brother, Adam Branch, has played an instrumental role in my whole academic career as well as in this project. Leading by example, Adam first showed me that graduate studies in political science could be fun. Then, before I began at Berkeley, he gave me a copy of Hendrik Spruyt’s The Sovereign State and Its Competitors – guiding me toward the questions that eventually led to this book. My parents, of course, deserve more gratitude than I can offer. Their support – of every imaginable kind – has always been beyond measure. Their example and love continue to keep me going, every day. This book is dedicated to them.