A History of the World in 47 Borders

The Stories Behind the Lines on Our Maps

By: Jonn Elledge

Narrated by: Jonn Elledge

'Fascinating' TOM HOLLAND

'A delight from start to finish' MIRANDA SAWYER
'A novel and fascinating perspective on world history' BILL BRYSON
'By turns surprising, funny, bleak, ridiculous, or all four of those at once' GIDEON DEFOE

People have been drawing lines on maps for as long as there have been maps to draw on. Sometimes rooted in physical geography, sometimes entirely arbitrary, these lines might often have looked very different if a war or treaty or the decisions of a handful of tired Europeans had gone a different way. By telling the stories of these borders, we can learn a lot about how political identities are shaped, why the world looks the way it does - and about the scale of human folly.

From the Roman attempts to define the boundaries of civilisation, to the secret British-French agreement to carve up the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, to the reason why landlocked Bolivia still maintains a navy, this is a fascinating, witty and surprising look at the history of the world told through its borders.

©2024 Jonn Elledge (P)2024 Headline Publishing Group Ltd

fantastic geopolitical analysis

if you're a fan of Tim Marshall's trilogy on geography, then this is the book for you.