#52: Gideon Defoe, An Atlas of Extinct Countries

[kareila]

This is a humorous compilation of facts about various countries throughout modern history that no longer exist for one reason or another, from the Golden Kingdom of Silla (57 BCE - 935 CE; cause of death: "an obsession with class") to Yugoslavia (1918-41, 1945-92; cause of death: "nobody thought they were from Yugoslavia"), and including some real mayflies such as Ruthenia (15-16 March 1939; cause of death: "Hungary") and the Ottawa Civic Hospital Maternity Ward (19 January 1943; cause of death: the birth of Princess Margriet of the Netherlands), and some that were just one person's really terrible idea, such as the Islands of Refreshment (1811-16; cause of death: "a boating accident") and Poyais (1821-37; cause of death: "crushing reality"). The majority of the various nations included were previously unknown to me, and almost all of them had descriptions that contained at least one amusing anecdote, although I did despair somewhat at the number of times a wealthy megalomaniacal white dude wreaked havoc in the world. My only complaint about the book is that it uses W3W to describe locations instead of degrees of latitude and longitude, which have the advantage of not relying on a relatively obscure website for translation.