The book, meticulously researched but written for genuine laughs, was inspired by tales that self-confessed "map nerd" Defoe has been collecting over the years. Defoe divides the countries up into several categories, depending on their circumstances -- there are "puppets & political footballs," "lies & lost kingdoms" and "mistakes & micronations." In the book, Defoe augments that description with "serially unfaithful, stint in the army or navy... can't be trusted with money, fantasist." As was the case with many of these countries, the Italian speaking region of Fiume was redesignated by a pen stroke during horsetrading over frontiers at the end of World War I. The triangular territory actually survived just over a century, until it was absorbed into Belgium at the end of World War I.

Source: The Nation September 16, 2020 09:00 UTC