Review by Booklist Review
Hate history? Hate geography? Just let Defoe's irreverent wit make these subjects come alive. From his iconoclastic intro to tongue-in-cheek discussions of flags and anthems, Defoe's romp through geographical history will delight. Each short chapter opens with salient facts, and instead of listing boring latitude and longitude, he employs the "what3words" geocoding system, which only compounds the hilarity. The book is divided into four sections: One section discusses countries that were formed by (let's be honest) maniacs; another discusses those "formed by cartographical accident." Countries that never really were (or were lost) make up a third section, and the final section includes countries where political machinations were the name of the game. Throughout each section readers will find familiar countries like Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and Yugoslavia, but the real joy is learning about places like Neutral Moresnet and Libertalia. One country was formed in a Canadian maternity ward and only lasted for a day, population: 2. Other countries lasted hundreds of years and their populations numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Anglophiles will appreciate Defoe's use of words like skint and tenner. Each chapter includes hand-drawn maps. This book is a sparkling gem. Don't gloss over the footnotes!
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Defoe (How Animals Have Sex) brings a light touch to this unique collection of "obituaries of the nations that fell off the map." Highlighting 48 (often grim) countries that no longer exist, Defoe covers the familiar, such as Yugoslavia, as well as more obscure places such as Franceville (a country from 1889--1890 in modern-day Vanuatu), and catalogues "chancers, racists, racist chancers, conmen, madmen... and a lot of things that you'd file under the umbrella term of 'general idiocy'." In 1811, for example, a Massachusetts adventurer tried to establish on three remote islands in the south Atlantic a country with a mission to offer refreshments to passing travelers, thereby creating "a glorified motorway service station, but in the stupidest place possible." The residents of "The Great Republic of Rough & Ready," meanwhile, gave up on seceding from California when a neighboring town refused to sell them alcohol. Defoe's humor doesn't always fit the material (William Walker's deliberate contamination of water supplies that caused a cholera epidemic in modern-day Mexico, and a civil war in 19th-century China that killed between 20 million and 100 million, are both relegated to footnotes), but on balance the author's superior talent for vivid similes and punchy writing do justice to the tales of megalomaniacs and fools. This is perfect for fans of Atlas Obscura. (June)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Historical sketches of 48 countries that no longer exist. "Countries die," writes Defoe on the first page. "Sometimes it's murder. Sometimes it's an accident. Sometimes it's because they were too ludicrous to exist in the first place." The author, who admittedly uses the term country broadly, provides brief, often humorous summaries not intended to provide a comprehensive, scholarly examination of extinct countries. The book contains a mixture of familiar nations and "countries" that many readers may have never known existed (Poyais, Khwarezmia, the Free State of Bottleneck, the Great Republic of Rough & Ready, etc.). Although Defoe offers a clever perspective, the satirical tone occasionally misses the mark. Regarding the Kingdom of Bavaria (1805-1918): "Every morning, Ludwig II, the fourth king of Bavaria, would have his barber tease out his hair into a weird bouffant that made his head look massive." The Principality of Elba (1814-1815): "It had been a rough few years and, like desperate parents sticking an iPad in front of their difficult toddler, the great powers of Europe decided to give the recently vanquished Emperor Napoleon a little country of his own to play with." The author's irreverent, often biting style captures numerous unsettling elements of world history. "The Confederate States of America hasn't been a thing for a century and a half," he writes, "but that doesn't stop cowardly Nazis (in those parts of Europe where the swastika is banned) from using the Confederate flag as a coded bumper sticker." And: "The new Kingdom of Yugoslavia, barely out of its bubble wrap, first fell apart in World War II. Croatia enthusiastically hooked up with the Axis powers. So enthusiastically in fact, that the Nazis found the Croat massacres of the Serbs a bit hard to stomach (compared to their own, much neater genocides)." It's not Niall Ferguson, but it fits the historical facts. A droll, tongue-in-cheek view of history best taken in small doses and with a grain of salt. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
