Welcome to the History Extra Podcast, Fascinating Historical Conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine.

People have been drawing lines on maps for as long as there have been maps to draw on. Whether for political, geographical, or sometimes completely arbitrary purposes.

But when it comes to borders, these simple marks have had a huge impact on lives and identities through the centuries. In today's podcast, journalist and author John

Elage speaks to Paul Bloomfield about his new book A History of the World in 47 Borders.

John, welcome to the History Extra Podcast. Thanks for joining us.

Thank you so much for having me.

So your new book, A History of the World in 47 Borders is subtitle The Stories Behind the Lines on Our Maps.

What was it about these stories that entreat you?

Why did you decide to look at history through the Prisma Borders and why is this topic so pressing now?

So there's a clever answer to this and an honest answer to this.

The clever answer is I've always been interested in these questions of national identity formation,

why the map looks the way it does, where the world we live in comes from really,

which actually was to a certainly extent inspired by a great BBC radio documentary strand,

how to invent a country with Meisha Glemi,

which is an absolutely wonderful little series

has been running for more than a decade, I think.

So that feeds into a lot of it.

But the more honest answer is,

I used to edit website for the new statesman called

Citimetric which was meant to be about cities but ended up largely being about maps and

I discovered that people got really excited about stupid borders and they're often interesting stories behind them.

And it just felt like a structure for a book in which I could talk about that kind of national identity stuff I've already referenced.

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