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A review by vampiricduck
Worth Dying For: The Power and Politics of Flags by Tim Marshall
3.0
I read Marshall's Prisoners of Geography when it was released and loved it. I'm generally interested in the topic of flags so was happy to pick this up too. It's strongly written, interesting and full of tidbits that I never would have realised without the book- but there are also some problems here.
The entire 'Flags of Fear' section is dominated by flags of militant Islamist groups. The Nazi swastika is discussed in the chapter about Germany's flag history, but surely belongs here, given the symbol remains common among neo-Nazi groups. Equally, Marshall could have discussed the fascinating history of Northern Ireland and the flags utilised by its militant groups- all of which still have strong meanings and which are being widely discussed again with Brexit on the horizon. He could have discussed the Red Army Faction (Baader Meinhof), which gets a brief mention but isn't considered in depth- or even FARC, which was significant in world news in 2016. The decision to focus so heavily on fundamentalist Islam flags gives the book a firmly Western centrist outlook- it neglects to comprehend wider realities of so-called 'revolutionary' and terrorist groups.
Of course, the very nature of flags is that they draw an emotional response. I don't think any author could escape criticism on this front- 'flags' is not a topic where all corners can be appeased.
My other major issue with the book (which I read in ebook format) was that reading the descriptions of the flags was very unfriendly without an image to easily refer to. This made the reading experience quite stilted on a kindle.
That's not to say I didn't like this- the author's knowledge of Western flags is clearly great and I learned more about Middle Eastern and African flags than I had known before- I also learned a lot more about Islamist flags and how these bastardise genuine Islamic messages.
The end focus on flags that are famous while not standing for a nation state, like the Pride flag, was a nice way to end the book. I learned a lot- but in the end, perhaps this topic was too large for a pop-geography book.
The entire 'Flags of Fear' section is dominated by flags of militant Islamist groups. The Nazi swastika is discussed in the chapter about Germany's flag history, but surely belongs here, given the symbol remains common among neo-Nazi groups. Equally, Marshall could have discussed the fascinating history of Northern Ireland and the flags utilised by its militant groups- all of which still have strong meanings and which are being widely discussed again with Brexit on the horizon. He could have discussed the Red Army Faction (Baader Meinhof), which gets a brief mention but isn't considered in depth- or even FARC, which was significant in world news in 2016. The decision to focus so heavily on fundamentalist Islam flags gives the book a firmly Western centrist outlook- it neglects to comprehend wider realities of so-called 'revolutionary' and terrorist groups.
Of course, the very nature of flags is that they draw an emotional response. I don't think any author could escape criticism on this front- 'flags' is not a topic where all corners can be appeased.
My other major issue with the book (which I read in ebook format) was that reading the descriptions of the flags was very unfriendly without an image to easily refer to. This made the reading experience quite stilted on a kindle.
That's not to say I didn't like this- the author's knowledge of Western flags is clearly great and I learned more about Middle Eastern and African flags than I had known before- I also learned a lot more about Islamist flags and how these bastardise genuine Islamic messages.
The end focus on flags that are famous while not standing for a nation state, like the Pride flag, was a nice way to end the book. I learned a lot- but in the end, perhaps this topic was too large for a pop-geography book.