Maps are great, if shy, historians; their borders tell stories. Tales about the land, tales about people who drew them. They have lasting consequences. This book explores some of those borders with the most to tell us. History, biography and politics all play a part. Some of the oddest frontiers and some of the most painful consequences are examined, from Palestine to The Punjab, by way of Ireland, The Caucasus, The Balkans and Africa. Not all stories are peaceful, and the too-forgotten fights of the Opium Wars and Kurdistan are examined, along with the people who made the decisions. This book is for anyone who has spent a happy hour reading a map, and wondering just how and why some of those lines got to be where they are - mostly boundaries, but also other oddities and curiosities, and for anyone perplexed by a news story from an exotic land, far away in place or time. Copiously illustrated with maps and pictures, it is illuminating, enjoyable and, hopefully, disturbing.

Autorentext

Four decades at the chalkface, teaching Geography, Economics and Maths, half of them as Headmaster saw Ross & Sue living and working in a dozen countries. Geographer by trade, he has travelled to over fifty countries, including the full overland route from Melbourne across Asia. He speaks French, and has a little Russian and Bahasa Indonesia.

Both are active in local community life, when not travelling. Their two children have inherited nascent nomadic tendencies.

He has crossed, or occasionally failed to cross, many of the borders studied; The Lie of the Land is all too topical now, with new wars active again in Palestine, the Caucasus and The Sahel.

Ross is the author of:

'A Maltese Crossing' a novella (Austin Macaulay, May 2022) 978-1398-435-032 &

'Parallel Lives Crossing' (Lune Valley Publishing, November 2022) 978-1916-896-659.

He is working on illustrated books on Buddhist Sculpture and then Russian Revolutionary Art, due out in 2024.