Who wants out, why they want out, and what actually happens when the flags come down. A brisk, biting tour of the world’s live independence movements—told with a wink and a very sharp pencil. From Catalonia’s ballot boxes to Kurdistan’s battlefields, from Greenland’s slow-burn autonomy to West Papua’s fast-blackouts, this book explains the politics beneath the headlines—minus the sanctimony. It’s serious, deeply informative, and shamelessly ironic, because geopolitics is absurd and people are not. What you’ll learn (and laugh grimly about): * Secession vs. separatism vs. independence: what these words really mean, and how governments weaponize them. * The universal triangle: identity (dignity), distribution (money), decision-making (power)—why nearly every movement boils down to these three. * How movements fight now: referendums and roadblocks, lawfare and lobbying, diaspora megaphones, and, yes, sometimes guns. * The “terrorist vs. freedom fighter” problem: a clear, humane framework for outsiders to judge methods without picking propaganda. Perfect for readers of geopolitics and current affairs, journalists, policy folks, and anyone who’s ever looked at a border and thought, “That can’t be right.”
