Where In The World???

Source:  Pixabay

"Where in the World" is my current reading Focus Interest.  As you may recall from previous posts, I sometimes find an area of interest into which I wish to delve deeply.  I find and read as many book as I can about the topic.  So far I've explored Mountain Climbing, the artists Vincent Van Gogh and Mary Cassatt, and the Hinges of History series by Thomas Cahill.  There's no time or number of books criteria.  I'm finished when I'm saturated. 

Some time ago I acquired a new globe (geography doesn't change; boundries do!).  I printed a list of all the countries and for awhile Ron and I spent our dinner time finding every country in the world.  It was fun, and we found some countries we didn't know about. 

A few months ago I was reading a collection of travel essays. The introduction was by a writer and traveler from Britain.  He commented on the difference between European travelers and US travelers. As you might expect, European travelers tend to be much more "worldly"; European countries are geographically the equivalent of US states!  He then made an observation about how younger people are becoming, overall, less knowledgeable about both geographical and political boundaries in the world.  He gave an example of the daughter of friends who attended the United Nations International School in New York (tuition ~$40,000/year) but couldn't find Israel on a globe. 

And that's how this Focus Interest found its Focus.  Having identified all the countries on the globe, I decided I wanted to become more "worldly" by learning a little about each of them, with special attention to those I know least about.  There are 195 countries in the world; plenty of which I know nothing about!  I also chose to start with the smallest geographically and read to the largest.  I love the WWW-that list was at my fingertips.
 
I'm acquiring books on my current favorite used book site, Better World Books.  I have a price criteria of ~$5 or under, and that requires me to be flexible on content.  I've found historical accounts, personal accounts, fiction, and lots and lots of travel guides.  Each is interesting and informative in its own way.  I have gotten caught not looking at a book closely enough before buying and found upon arrival it was a children's book.  But I also found a book that included five teeny tiny European countries in a fell swoop.

Do you know which is the smallest country in the world?  I didn't.  It's the Vatican.  Yep, its own country.  After that, it's islands in a large area of the Pacific, then those teeny tiny countries in Europe called micro states, including the Vatican, then more variously located islands. 

So far my reading has been primarily about island countries.  No matter how small the country, there's a history.  Surprising to me is the number of islands that have been "acquired" for military and political purposes, both by the US and European countries, usually to the detriment of the islands.  Some have struggled and succeeded in regaining autonomy: Tuvalu, Nauru, Palau .  Many are still in  never-never land, neither independent nor fully supported by the country of political control: Puerto Rico, Guam, Philippines.  

My favorite book so far is "Where the Hell is Tuvalu?"  It's a personal account of a young English man who tires of his big-city lawyerly duties in London and volunteers for Voluntary Service Overseas, the UK equivalent of the Peace Corps.  He is assigned a two-year stint as the People's Lawyer on the island of Tuvalu, deep in the Pacific Ocean.  It's the account of his culture shock, his necessary acceptance of climate, living conditions, food, and the ways he could or could not be helpful.  It's well told, with clarity and humor. 

What a journey I'm on!  It's a path of learning I couldn't anticipate. There's a big world out there, and I'm looking forward to continuing this new way of knowing it.