A book review of A Brief History of the World in 47 Borders: Surprising Stories Behind the Lines on Our Maps by Jonn Elledge
Stars: *****
The Experiment (2025)
Geography/History
368 pages
Disclosure: I received this book in exchange for an honest review. This post contains affiliate links.
Summary: 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. 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. From the very first maps in Egypt to the Roman attempts to define the boundaries of civilization, from the profound shift in meaning of the Mason-Dixon Line to the secret British-French agreement to carve up the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, and from the dark consequences of Detroit’s city limits to the intriguing reason why landlocked Bolivia still maintains a navy, this is a singular look at all of human history―told through its most captivating border stories. 22 B&W maps
A Brief History of the World in 47 Borders
I’ve always loved geography but not history. This book is a mixture of both. I thought it would be interested in reading about why the borders of some countries are so weird. I enjoyed this book although it was a heavy book, so a slow read.
It was pretty interesting though. Especially parts of the world I know a little about but also some ones I know nothing about.
The chapters are separated into three sections: Histories, Legacies and Externalities. Histories includes such chapters as The Borders of Great Britain; Holy, Roman and an Empire; The Great Wall of China and the Borders as Unifier and The Much Misunderstood Mason-Dixon Line. Legacies includes such chapters as The US-Canada Border, and the Trouble with Straight Lines; Some Notes on Microstates; and Costa Rica, Nicaragua and the ‘Google Maps War’. Externalities includes such chapters as A Brief History of the Prime Meridian; A Brief History of the International Date Line; and Boundaries in the Air.
I thought I’d really appreciate the US-Canada border one since I live in a Canadian border city. However I found that one less interesting. I found the ones about places I know nothing about to be the most interesting. I learned about landlocked countries (some landlocked countries have a Navy!); accidental invasions (Liechtenstein was accidentally invaded by Switzerland like 5 times!); and The Google Map War (Nicaragua and Costa Rica fought over a small area of land and the Nicaraguan commander used Google Maps to decide the border which was apparently wrong). All very interesting stories and they weren’t the only ones.
If you are interested in World Geography, borders and history this is your book.
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