When you see your nation's flag fluttering in the breeze what do you feel?; For thousands of years flags have represented our hopes & dreams We wave them Burn them March under their colours & still in the 21st century we die for them Flags fly at the UN on the Arab street from front porches in Texas They represent the politics of high power as well as the politics of the mob; From the renewed sense of nationalism in China to troubled identities in Europe & the USA to the terrifying rise of Islamic State the world is a confusing place right now & we need to understand the symbols old & new that people are rallying round; In nine chapters (covering the USA UK Europe Middle East Asia Africa Latin America international flags & flags of terror) Tim Marshall draws on more than twenty-five years of global reporting experience to reveal the histories the power & the politics of the symbols that unite us
- & divide us