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Do not order this book if you are seriously interested in UN-approved micronations such as Liechtenstein, Tuvalu, or San Marino. Buy this book if you are interested in "countries" with self appointed leadership featuring a penchant for secession and zaniness. The people and places in this book are all real, and vary from slightly to extremely strange. Most of them are lovable loonies, but there are a few more serious-minded communities, like Sealand and Christiana, for example. Sealand (essentially a sunken barge in the North Sea) has even had a coup, and Christiana has overriding interests in recreational drugs and tricycles.
I was very amused by this book, mostly by the people in charge of their own countries. I especially liked the Hutt River Province Principality in Australasia, which actually declared war on Australia, but was promptly ignored by the official government. Also local to Australasia is the Republic of Whangamomona, which has had both a poodle and goat as president. The goat, Billy (aka "Gumboots,") is frequently analogized to JFK according to the book as "accusations of vote eating surrounded the hot new president;" he was believed to have been assassinated by poisoned grass at age 14, and was given a state funeral. He now rests in a well-marked grave overlooking his kingdom.
The Republic of Molossia in Nevada is perhaps my favorite of the micronations. Not only do they have a Ministry for Space Exploration (the flagship rocket is shown on the launch pad,) but they have an official national sport of broomball, which to outsiders may appear to be a comical version of field hockey. Although located in an arid landlocked region, Molossia has a navy, with the flagship being the "MS Wombat." All this infrastructure requires capital, and the currency in Molossia is the Valora. For purposes of exchange rates the Valora is "pegged to the value of Pillsbury Cookie Dough, with three Valora being equal to one tube of Cookie Dough."
I am also fond of the Aerican Empire which has an official religion centered on Forsteri, the Great Penguin. Aericans believe in "the coming of Not-Quite-The-Apocalypse, heralded by the four 'Incompetent Riders,' comprising a penguin, a platypus, a giant walnut and a fourth rider that can't quite be identified." Meanwhile, life goes on in Ladonia, near Sweden, which is strictly governed by Cabinet posts such as the Ministry of Rock-Paper-Scissors, the Ministry of Things Under Rocks, and the Ministry of Apathy, which is a powerful force in the government. On the still wackier end of the fringe is the Republic of Kugelmugel founded on Austrian territory by artist Edwin Lipburger, who is now the sole citizen of Kugelmugel, a postmodern territory obsessed with balls and spheres. Why? Lipburger explains: "Everything is round...the Earth, life, the ball, everything turns...why not live in balls? Round is free, it has no beginning or end." With logic like that, how can you not want to visit Kugelmugel, and for that matter, the other places in this unconventional, yet uplifting, travel book?
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