Jonn Elledge, "A Brief History of the World in 47 Borders: Surprising Stories Behind the Lines on Our Maps" (Experiment, 2024)
In this eye-opening investigation into the most remarkable points on the map, a single boundary might, upon closer inspection, reveal eons of history—from epic tales of conquest, treaties, and alliances to intimate, all-too-human stories of love, greed, and folly. Sometimes rooted in physical geography, sometimes entirely arbitrary, none of the lines we know today were inevitable, and all might have looked quite different if not for the intricate interplay of chance and ambition.
By listening to the stories these borders have to tell, we can learn how political identities are shaped, why the…
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