I have no idea why the 'gram suggested "Just Can't Get Enough" as ths appropriate soundtrack to some pictures of me talking Borders at @mkwaterstones@mklitfest a couple of weeks back, but I'm not *not* into it.
From electric lighting to pedestrian crossings, escalators to elevators and sewers to skyscrapers to the streets on which they stand, this is the story of the ideas that quietly built the world around us.
Introducing 31 Inventions that Built our World, a fascinating and unmissable delve into the history of the city by @jonnelledge , the Sunday Times #1 Bestselling author of A History of the World in 47 Borders✏️
'Charming and outstandingly nerdish' ROBERT WEBB
'I love Jonn Elledge; I love the way he looks at the world' MARINA HYDE
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For over 10,000 years, we humans have been busy altering our environment and embracing 'progress', evolving seamlessly from hunter gatherers to the modern urban sophisticates we see ourselves as today.
But what are the ideas and inventions that enabled humanity to become, by the early 21st century, a majority urban species for the first time? How did the essential infrastructure of modern life - the innovations that we barely even notice, but without which our world would fall apart - actually come to be?
With his characteristic wit and boundless curiosity, Jonn Elledge invites us to join him on a fascinating and often surprising tour of the ideas and technologies that made modernity possible. From elevators to electric lighting, parks to pedestrian crossings, he guides us through the history of civilisation itself.
#Bookstagram #InstaBook #NonFiction #NewBook
A History Of The World In 47 Borders
By @jonnelledge
368 Pages
The last of my purchases from Hay Festival 2025!
In this book, author Jonn Elledge dives into the world of Geopolitics dividing the book into three sections: Histories, Legacies and Externalities in order to cover some of the world’s most curious and controversial borders as a series of short stories, each of them delivered with some humour.
What I like about this book is that it’s insightful, delivering a lot of history, whilst also being humorous which aids the flow of the book and keeps things entertaining. Each chapter consisting of roughly 6-8 pages discusses a different border from around the world. From my experience, the fact that the book is ‘advertised’ in this way really helps the reader to mentally divide each of the chapters and follow the shift to the new topic of conversation. This has been one of my criticisms of Tim Marshall’s series, in that each of the longer chapters can flow to various different borders/issues/populations quite quickly leaving the reader floundering to keep up.
With every positive there must come a negative, and on this occasion whilst I like the “short story” approach that helps the reader in so many ways, it also means that author Elledge is flooding each of the stories with his extensive research in order to provide historical context. This left me feeling like I was struggling to absorb all of the information provided. Whilst some chapters provided maps, I would have liked a few more in order to add visual context to each of the points being discussed. I also found some of the later chapters in the ‘Externalities’ section such as discussing sea, air and in particular space borders to be a little drier than earlier chapters.
Overall I found this an enjoyable book, well written, adding a little of the author’s personality between the pages but also with the opportunity for improvement with the addition of more visual aids.
🌟🌟🌟✨
#beestonbookreviewer #geopolitics #jonnelledge #ahistoryoftheworldin47borders
Apparently in the US it's independent book store day. I'm a bit hazy about that, but here's a book any Americans reading may wish to buy in the independent book of their choice. #bookstoreday
#bookstagram
/p/books/a-brief-history-of-the-world-in-47-borders-surprising-stories-behind-the-lines-on-our-maps-jonn-elledge/d39c54d3ab100fff?ean=9798893030822&next=t&aid=2066&listref=your-favorite-indie-bookstore-s-favorite-book
last batch of photos from my trip to the Tyne, in which i learned that Newcastle includes one of the most beautiful parks i have ever seen AND i got to see something out of a Dire Straits song
New Northumberland line to the mining village Ashington, plus a sidetrip to the beach at Newbiggin where Henry Scampi tried his paw at mining too. Thanks to @pdk_mitchell for a good day owt
Dining With Strangers #131 | Jonn Elledge (January 2025)
"History gives a sense of how we got to here."
Jonn Elledge is a British journalist and author of A (Brief) History of the World in 47 Borders – a book that explains the lines on our maps and, in doing so, explains rather a lot about us – and on a cold Friday night in Islington we spent two hours over French onion soup and crab linguine talking about ancient Egypt, Genghis Khan, the Mason-Dixon line, Brexit, and why empires are probably historically inevitable even if they're not very good things.
This was the first dinner interview since #130 in February 2020 – nearly five years, for reasons the pandemic started and life continued. Two years ago today, my dear friend John Curry – Dining With Strangers' editor and biggest cheerleader – died. He never stopped urging me to restart the interviews, and I never stopped changing the subject.
This one's for John, he would have loved every minute of it.
#diningwithstrangers #47borders #jonnelledge
not the end, nor even the beginning of the end, but at least the end of the beginning: it's too long, it needs checking, I've not even read it through from start to finish... but it exists. the new book exists
