Sunday, 17 October 2021

An Atlas of Extinct Countries by Gideon Defoe

 
 


I can't remember how I got onto this book.  It is an amusing lightweight account of how 48 countries ceased to exist.  The author is a cross between Bill Bryson and PJ O'Rourke.

 

Don't read it to be informed but to be entertained.  The humour can be biting.   For example, he says 'The Confederate States of America hasn’t been a thing for a century and a half, 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.'

 

I enjoyed it – it was all done with a light ironic tone.

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