Book: An Atlas of Extinct Countries
Author: Gideon Defoe
Reviewed by: Christopher N. Smith, attorney at law and Honorary Consul of Denmark in Georgia
Tucked away in the Himalayas, the Kingdom of Sikkim existed for more than 300 years until it went extinct in 1975. Closer to home, the Great Republic of Rough and Ready, located in present day California, lasted for a mere three months in 1850.
Worlds apart and with wildly divergent durations, the two appear together among the 48 former countries chronicled in Gideon Defoe’s An Atlas of Extinct Countries.
Some of the post-mortems are tragic, others pragmatic and others simply head-scratchers.
One tragic tale concerns the failed state of Poyais in modern day Honduras and Nicaragua. The country was a scheme by a con man who promised settlers and investors from Scotland a fres start in a utopian new port city. Yet the early 19th-century settlers arrived to find a mosquito-infested swamp with no buildings. Many of them soon contracted tropical diseases.
More pragmatic was the 104-year existence of Neutral Moresnet. It was created due to a dispute concerning a zinc mine claimed by both Prussia and the Netherlands (and later Belgium). It was founded in 1816 as a compromise to avoid conflict and now is part of Belgium.
From the “What were they thinking?” department comes the story of the short-lived Islands of Refreshment, which rebukes the oft quoted statement from the movie Field of Dreams – “Build it and they will come.” Located in the South Atlantic the remote islands are currently part of the British overseas territory of Tristan de Cunha. In 1811 a New England-based entrepreneur claimed the islands and thought they could be used as a lucrative stop over destination for ships traversing the area. Perhaps he envisioned a 19th-century equivalent to the modern-day Buc-ee’s mega gas station and convenience store. The problem of course being that in order to be a good rest stop one should be in an area where people are actually traveling to. The modern-day population of the islands is 4. So still not a hot destination.
The book is not intended to be a catalogue of the voluminous list of states that no longer exist on the globe. Nor does is offer any overarching statements on the status of borders which are still in dispute. Rather it is a series of short obituaries on a select number of nations, many of which the typical reader has never heard of. The book is thus a valuable addition to the library of those interested in history, geography and global affairs. It also imparts knowledge worthy of further investigation. For example: a deeper dive outside of the contents of the book revealed that Neutral Moresnet actually had it’s own national anthem, a catchy tune one can even find on YouTube.
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