Extinguished Countries: A Brilliant New Guidebook Series

Today, a new guidebook series on guidebooks to countries that no longer exist is coming out. We love everything about it: the concept, the philosophy and the name: Extinguished Countries!

The first book published will be about the Republic of Venice.

The idea is to present what is left of the Serenissima (the traditional name for Republic of Venice) in terms of architecture, gastronomy, dialect, art etc. in all the territories that once composed it, and also to check what is the relationship between the modern States (in this case Italy, Slovenia, Croatia etc.) and that period of history. It’s a new way of traveling that goes beyond borders and deals with our common past.

It is not a revisionist or nostalgic book, on the contrary, the team wants to show what different countries have in common and how they interpret that common period in different ways. Founder Giovanni did more than 400 interviews with people from Northern Italy to Cyprus in order to write this “common story”.

The team launches this project with a crowdfunding campaign pre-selling the book, starting today (March 9th) at noon. And if you happen to be in Zagreb today (where the team is based), there’s a launch party at the Croatian Journalists’ Association.