Nowherelands: An Atlas of Vanished Countries 1840–1975
- Oct 29, 2021
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 14
★★★☆☆
There are many was to define what makes a country, one of which is that it managed to issue stamps. That is precisely the measure Bjørn Berge uses to frame this collection of 50-ish erstwhile nations. In case you weren’t paying attention in school, much of the world has been colonized at one point or another, and much of the world’s history has been in response to that colonization. The issue of these stamps and their accompanying stories are at once illuminating, frustrating, depressing, and sobering. Nowherelands touches on each country’s moment of sovereignty, however brief, and the net effect is that the western world, in particular the European powers, has done little good and much harm over the past two centuries.
What you’ll find here are hard stories, glimmers of hope, dreams dashed, and stamps. Some were poorly designed, some were well designed, and some were as phony as the governments they were meant to represent. If you’ve ever believed that the world was stable, Nowherelands will quickly put that misconception to rest, while simultaneously rejoicing that even under duress, people and nations found it possible to believe in the future—in freedom, in liberty—however unlikely, improbable, or short-lived that future actually was.
This is ostensibly a coffee table book in diminutive form. I would have preferred a format at least twice the size, with larger type, larger maps, larger stamp reproductions, and longer stories. Nowherelands was, in the end, a scratch-the-surface find-out-more-for-yourself book. Sadly, as is the case with many of history’s losers, Berge’s love letter to these lost nations may be as much as any of them will ever receive.
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