
An Atlas of Extinct Countries
The Remarkable (and Occasionally Ridiculous) Stories of 48 Nations That Fell off the Map
Gideon Defoe(Author)
Fourth Estate Ltd (Publisher)
Published on 3. September 2020
Book
Hardback
304 pages
978-0-00-839385-4 (ISBN)
Description
Prisoners of Geography meets Bill Bryson: a funny, fascinating, beautifully illustrated - and timely - history of countries that, for myriad and often ludicrous reasons, no longer exist.
'Countries are just daft stories we tell each other. They're all equally implausible once you get up close'
Countries die. Sometimes it's murder, sometimes it's by accident, and sometimes it's because they were so ludicrous they didn't deserve to exist in the first place. Occasionally they explode violently. A few slip away almost unnoticed. Often the cause of death is either 'got too greedy' or 'Napoleon turned up'. Now and then they just hold a referendum and vote themselves out of existence.
This is an atlas of nations that fell off the map. The polite way of writing an obituary is: dwell on the good bits, gloss over the embarrassing stuff. This book fails to do that. And that is mainly because most of these dead nations (and a lot of the ones that are still alive) are so weird or borderline nonsensical that it's impossible to skip the embarrassing stuff.
The life stories of the sadly deceased involve a catalogue of chancers, racists, racist chancers, conmen, madmen, people trying to get out of paying tax, mistakes, lies, stupid schemes and General Idiocy. Because of this - and because treating nation states with too much respect is the entire problem with pretty much everything - these accounts are not fussed about adding to all the earnest flag saluting in the world, however nice some of the flags are.
'Countries are just daft stories we tell each other. They're all equally implausible once you get up close'
Countries die. Sometimes it's murder, sometimes it's by accident, and sometimes it's because they were so ludicrous they didn't deserve to exist in the first place. Occasionally they explode violently. A few slip away almost unnoticed. Often the cause of death is either 'got too greedy' or 'Napoleon turned up'. Now and then they just hold a referendum and vote themselves out of existence.
This is an atlas of nations that fell off the map. The polite way of writing an obituary is: dwell on the good bits, gloss over the embarrassing stuff. This book fails to do that. And that is mainly because most of these dead nations (and a lot of the ones that are still alive) are so weird or borderline nonsensical that it's impossible to skip the embarrassing stuff.
The life stories of the sadly deceased involve a catalogue of chancers, racists, racist chancers, conmen, madmen, people trying to get out of paying tax, mistakes, lies, stupid schemes and General Idiocy. Because of this - and because treating nation states with too much respect is the entire problem with pretty much everything - these accounts are not fussed about adding to all the earnest flag saluting in the world, however nice some of the flags are.
Reviews / Votes
'This entertaining atlas of nations that fell off the map is a joyously compiled catalogue of chancers, conmen, madmen, mistakes, lies and far fetches schemes that laid waste the genuine hopes of a nation or exploded the overreaching ambitions of bombastic megalomaniac ... a riot of revisionist history and political ambition' Traveller Magazine'A whirlwind tour through the pleasingly oddball tales of history's also-rans ... If you're looking for a delightful stocking stuffer for the travel and history aficionado in your life, look no further' Frommers
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
HarperCollins Publishers
Dimensions
Height: 211 mm
Width: 141 mm
Thickness: 32 mm
Weight
385 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-00-839385-4 (9780008393854)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Gideon Defoe
An Atlas of Extinct Countries
The Remarkable (and Occasionally Ridiculous) Stories of 48 Nations That Fell off the Map
E-Book
09/2020
1st Edition
Fourth Estate Ltd
€10.59
Available for download
Person
Gideon Defoe is the author of The Pirates! book series, and wrote the screenplay for the Oscar-nominated Aardman film The Pirates in an Adventure with Scientists. He has also written about how animals have sex and penned a computer game tie-in novel because he is bad at staying on brand.