A Flag Worth Dying For

May 8, 2017
In this brisk, entertaining read, Marshall (Prisoners of Geography) successfully answers a puzzling question: how can a simple piece of cloth come to mean so much? Whether the flag flies the Stars and Stripes, the five rings of the Olympics, or the Jolly Roger, Marshall explores its origins and political significance. He attributes the importance of flags partially to the discovery of silk, which allowed them to flutter, not hang. But the meaning of a flag is in the eye of the beholder. The U.S. flag means liberty to American citizens, but oppression to the country’s detractors. Marshall pays particular attention to the significance of colors, which transcend borders: red for blood or struggle, white for peace and harmony, blue for the oceans, yellow for gold or wealth. In the Middle East, green stands for Islam. Flags can denote ideology, as in France and China. Modern hate groups appropriate symbols such as the Nazi swastika and the Confederacy’s Stars and Bars to make their extreme positions visible. Flags in the developing world, or for transnational organizations such as the UN and NATO, are often aspirational, expressing pride or hope for unification. Marshall presents an informative survey of these highly visible symbols of national or international pride. Agent: George Lucas, InkWell Management.

May 15, 2017
Of flags grand and old, black and blue, marking us and them and giving us all the license we need to kill.Flags, writes British journalist Marshall (Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps that Explain Everything About the World, 2015), are fairly modern expressions of identity; they required the genius of China's silk industry in order to "flourish and spread" and "accompany armies onto battlefields." So they have done from the time of the Silk Road on, each bearing such significance that people have been willing to fight and die in its shadow. The tricolors of Italy and France, for instance, bear red, indicating "the usual blood spilled for independence." The flags of the Scandinavian countries are marked by crosses even though those countries are among the least churchly in the world--and on that note, Marshall points out the apparent irony that the most intensely Christian nations on the planet tend not to have Christian symbols on their flags. Not so the Muslim nations, whose flags bear the symbology of Islam. Bosnians, though predominantly Muslim, could not agree on a flag after the bloody civil war there, so the United Nations imposed one from outside, "devoid of religious or historical symbols." As for the black flags of various groups such as the Islamic State, so reminiscent of the pirates' Jolly Roger, they mean to suggest no good. Conversely, Marshall recounts the history of the LGBT flag, meant, in the view of its creator, the recently deceased Gilbert Baker, to suggest "the diversity of nature" and of people but now absent of its original pink stripe because pink is an unusual color for a flag and thus more expensive to manufacture. Country by country the author considers the great diversity of the world's flags, serving up with offhand affection a lively text full of interesting anecdotes and telling details. A treasure vault for vexillologists, full of meaning beyond the hue and thread of the world's banners.

COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

June 15, 2017

Journalist Marshall (Prisoners of Geography) has written an entertaining whistle-stop tour of world flags. This book is roughly divided by geography and flag symbol: flags featuring crosses, flags of the Middle East, and so forth. There is, of course, an argument to be had with Marshall's choice of geographic divisions, but it makes as much sense as any other arrangement. Marshall has done (some of) his homework and relays a few interesting heraldic details about the construction of flags as visual symbols. However, students of diplomacy or nationalism will find little new here. Marshall's choice of groups, as mentioned above, is problematic, and his text does not even approach the analytical. He excels at the personal and anecdotal, and the strongest sections relate his own encounters with various flags and individuals connected with them. VERDICT A quick read best suited for general audiences. Those in search of a more scholarly treatment should look elsewhere.--Hanna Clutterbuck-Cook, Harvard Univ. Lib., Cambridge, MA

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.