Fortress Power | My Site

Available from University of Minnesota Press

A compelling treatise on the relationship between power and enclosure

"This brilliant study is a key resource for teaching urban history, geography, political philosophy, and historical sociology. It is also a first-rate critical tool for reflecting on contemporary spatial politics. With great conceptual clarity and political sensitivity,
Denman reveals how the promise of security can become a machine of exclusion ―and how the desire for fortificaiton can corrode the very foundations of the commons. The challenge the book sets forth is not only to resist fortress power, but to radically reconfigure how we inhabit, protect, and share the world."—Journal of Historical Geography

"Fortress Power is a fascinating account of the centrality of the fortress in spatial, territorial, and political thinking in various contexts, scales, and forms. With a sophisticated theoretical approach, Derek S. Denman shows how fortress thinking has become central to the way spaces and geographies are conceived and perceived."—Irit Katz, author of The Common Camp: Architecture of Power and Resistance in Israel–Palestine

"This is a wonderfully well-written and lively book on the uncharted history of fortress power. Michel Foucault and Paul Virilio would have been pleased to see it in print! Fortress Power is a pleasure to read and highly relevant for our turbulent times."—Thomas Nail, author of The Philosophy of Movement: An Introduction

Fortress Power presents a genealogy of fortification as a material and political technology intent on obstruction, tracing its implementation across battlefields, borders, and urban environments. Drawing on the influential work of philosophers Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben, Derek S. Denman places the fortress alongside the archetypes of the prison and the camp, citing them as paradigmatic of how space is transformed into a tool of domination and control.

Focusing on the defensive architecture of bastion fortresses, urban design, and border landscapes, Fortress Power charts the rise of a form of governance grounded in hostility, extending the scope of its subject from a piece of military construction to a much broader political concept. Detailing how power manifests in everything from city centers to international boundaries, the book analyzes the logic of fortification as it moves through various contexts in the advancement of surveillance, exploitation, warfare, and political authority.

Through a unique blend of architecture and design studies, political theory, international relations, geography, and migration studies, Denman outlines the disquieting legacy of the fortress to highlight its role in the formation of modern government and the enactment of violence. In an era marked by the increasing prevalence of authoritarian power and conflicting geopolitical boundaries, he presents an insightful investigation of the weaponization of the built environment.