The New Geography of Homeland Security Risk, Power, and Protection in the 21st Century

This is not just a book about homeland security. It is a book about how space is claimed, governed, and contested in America today.

The New Geography of Homeland Security reframes the entire field through a bold central thesis: homeland security is not a bureaucratic function—it is a spatial project. David Alexander introduces five core geographies that define how security is exercised and denied: sovereignty, power, risk, protection, and exclusion. From fortified borders to flood-prone communities, surveillance platforms to zones of abandonment, these geographies reveal the hidden architecture of control in the modern republic.

Where Robert Kaplan’s The Revenge of Geography charted global power through physical terrain, this book turns the lens inward—mapping how national security is constructed through decisions about who counts, who is protected, and who is left behind. It is both a diagnosis and a provocation for planners, policymakers, and anyone concerned with the fractured geography of American life.