Micronations: The Lonely Planet Guide to Home-Made Nations

Micronations: The Lonely Planet Guide to Home-Made Nations is an Australian gazetteer about micronations published by Lonely Planet. Written by John Ryan, George Dunford and Simon Sellars, the book's profile of micronations offers information on their flags, leaders, currencies, date of foundation, maps and other facts. It was published in September 2006, and later re-subtitled Guide to Self-Proclaimed Nations. The book is written in a light-hearted and humorous tone.

Micronations: The Lonely Planet Guide to Home-Made Nations
Two people—one sitting and the other standing—and a dog wearing royal clothing on a lawn in-front of a suburban house. Below the people but still fronting the lawn is the title in vanilla white text, all capitals: "Micronations: The Lonely Planet Guide to Home-made nations". In the top left corner is the logo of Lonely Planet—a titular wordmark intersecting a circle in the middle—in blue, and in the top right is a white roundel (circular stamp) stating "100% True" in the centre; the text surrounding the circle reads "Real People" (top) and "Real Places" (bottom).
Book cover
AuthorJohn Ryan, George Dunford and Simon Sellars
CountryAustralia
LanguageEnglish
PublishedSeptember 2006
PublisherLonely Planet
Media typePrint
Pages160
ISBN978-1-74104-730-1

Background and publication

Micronations: The Lonely Planet Guide to Home-Made Nations—later re-subtitled Guide to Self-Proclaimed Nations—was published in September 2006 by Lonely Planet as a "fully illustrated, humorous mock-guidebook" to micronations.[1][2] Micronations are political entities that claim independence and mimic acts of sovereignty as if they were a sovereign country, but lack any legal recognition. They are classified separately from states with limited recognition or quasi-states as they lack the legal basis in international law for their existence.[3]

The book is authored by Australian journalist John Ryan, freelance journalist George Dunford, and writer and blogger Simon Sellars.[P 1] Ryan, the principal author of the book, became interested in the concept of micronationalism upon his discovery of the Principality of Hutt River in Australia. After researching further into the topic and finding out about the Conch Republic in the United States, Ryan became even more inspired by micronations, saying "as I started looking into the movement, I just saw that there were these strange little nations popping up all over the place."[4][5]

According to Sellars in an interview with BLDGBLOG, he overheard Ryan discussing the idea for a book about micronations with one of the Lonely Planet staff while he was working as an editor for Lonely Planet. Upon hearing it had been approved, Sellars pestered Ryan for several months until Ryan agreed to accept him as a co-writer. Dunford was later invited by Ryan as well. Sellars—who founded his own micronation when he was a kid—became interested in the concept because of his fondness of parallel universes in fiction—"anything that distorts or reflects or comments on the 'real' world – or sets up an alternative world".[6]

Content

Micronations: The Lonely Planet Guide to Home-Made Nations has 160 pages, and includes an introduction and a full index.[P 2] It also includes illustrations and maps.[7] The book's profile of micronations offers information on their flags, leaders, currencies, date of foundation, maps and other facts. Sidebars throughout the book provide overviews of such topics as coinage and stamps, as well as a profile of Emperor Norton. Micronations: The Lonely Planet Guide to Home-Made Nations is split into three parts: "Serious Business",[P 3] which includes what the authors equate as serious secessionist attempts, "My Backyard, My Nation",[P 4] which includes local and jocular micronations, and "Grand Dreams",[P 5] which includes largely imaginative micronations.

Below are the micronations featured in the book:

Serious Business

My Backyard, My Nation

Grand Dreams

Critical reception

Peter Needham, writing for The Australian, states that "Micronations: The Lonely Planet Guide to Home-made Nations provides plenty of information [on micronations]", calling it "amusing" and adding "[this] 160-page book takes a tongue-in-cheek look at the world's oddest little countries: some created as intricate pranks, others born of discontent, to avoid paying tax or just for fun." Needham appreciated the work's "light-hearted" approach to micronations and politics, and joked that "the prospect of a listing in future editions is an added incentive to those contemplating creating countries."[9]

Jo Sargent of The Geographical Magazine was more negative, writing that while he thinks Lonely Planet produces excellent guidebooks, Micronations: The Lonely Planet Guide to Home-Made Nations was more limited to eccentric micronational leaders rather than their micronations, saying "although mildly diverting, the format simply doesn't work." He adds that, although the book is amusing at first and there are some interesting entries, "there are only so many 'wacky' young men deciding that life is unfair and setting up a nation in their bedroom that one can stomach before your patience begins to wear thin."[10]

Jesse Walker, writing in The American Conservative, notes that Lonely Planet's book is more whimsical than Erwin Strauss' How to Start Your Own Country (1979), and has a greater focus on "charming, tongue-in-cheek projects like Molossia". Though he found two factual errors, Walker calls the book "entertaining reading," adding that "despite such minor errors, I assume it would be useful as an actual guide as well, if you ever decide to take a whirlwind tour of the world's micronations."[5]

See also

References

Primary sources
  1. Ryan, Dunford & Sellars 2006, pp. 153–54: "The Authors"
  2. Ryan, Dunford & Sellars 2006, "Table of contents"
  3. Ryan, Dunford & Sellars 2006, pp. 7–60
  4. Ryan, Dunford & Sellars 2006, pp. 61–108
  5. Ryan, Dunford & Sellars 2006, pp. 109–152

Secondary sources
  1. McDougall, Russel (15 September 2013). "Micronations of the Caribbean". In Fumagalli, Maria Cristina; Hulme, Peter; Robinson, Owen; Wylie, Lesley (eds.). Surveying the American Tropics: A Literary Geography from New York to Rio. Liverpool University Press. p. 233. doi:10.5949/liverpool/9781846318900.003.0010. ISBN 9781846318900.
  2. Vieira, Fátima (16 March 2022). "Micronations and Hyperutopias". In Marks, Peter; Wagner-Lawlor, Jennifer A.; Vieira, Fátima (eds.). The Palgrave Handbook of Utopian and Dystopian Literatures. Palgrave Macmillan. Springer International Publishing. p. 281. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-88654-7_22. ISBN 978-3-030-88654-7.
  3. Hobbs & Williams 2021, p. 76–78.
  4. Chadwick, Alex (1 November 2007). "'Lonely Planet' Explores Micronations". NPR. Archived from the original on 27 September 2022. Retrieved 14 July 2020.
  5. Walker, Jesse (19 November 2007). "Big Ideas Need Small Places". The American Conservative. Archived from the original on 31 May 2023. Retrieved 31 May 2023.
  6. Manaugh, Geoff (23 November 2006). "The Lonely Planet Guide to Micronations: An Interview with Simon Sellars". BLDGBLOG. Archived from the original on 29 June 2020. Retrieved 14 July 2020.
  7. "Micronations / John Ryan ; George Dunford ; Simon Sellars". National Library of Australia. n.d. Archived from the original on 31 May 2023. Retrieved 31 May 2023.
  8. Hobbs & Williams 2021, p. 73.
  9. Needham, Peter (16 September 2006). "Born to rule". The Australian. Archived from the original on 1 December 2008. Retrieved 14 July 2020.
  10. Sargent, Jo (October 2006). "It's a small world after all". The Geographical Magazine. Vol. 78, no. 10. Geographical Magazine Ltd. p. 91. ISSN 0016-741X.

Bibliography
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