An Atlas of Extinct Countries by Gideon Defoe, 304 pages.
This book carries descriptions of 48 "nations" that at one point existed and now do not. Nations is in scare quotes here because while some (like Yugoslavia) were definitely real countries, others weren't in any meaningful way (such as the Great Republic of Rough & Ready or the probably fictional Libertalia). To be honest the vast majority of the the countries described in this book weren't really countries to start with, and most existed for less than five years. All of which comes together into a book that isn't quite what I was expecting.
This book reminds me quite a bit of Jason Porath's Rejected Princesses (which I wrote about here), but Dofoe wasn't quite as good at staying on topic, and there were many footnotes that had very little to do with the countries in question (including one that was just an entire recipe for beef jerky). There's definitely some fun trivia to be had here, but it isn't quite the informative historical book I had been hoping for.
No comments:
Post a Comment