Sealand
The True Story of the World's Most Stubborn Micronation and Its Eccentric Royal Family
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- € 11,99
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- € 11,99
Publisher Description
A “thoroughly researched, stranger-than-fiction” history of the world’s tiniest rebel nation, filled with intrigue, armed battles, and radio pirates (Robert Jobson, author of Prince Philip’s Century).
In 1967, a retired army major and self-made millionaire named Paddy Roy Bates cemented his family’s place in history when he inaugurated himself ruler of the Principality of Sealand, a tiny dominion of the high seas. And so began the peculiar story of the world’s most stubborn micronation on a World War II anti-aircraft gun platform off the British coast.
Sealand is the raucous tale of how a rogue adventurer seized the disused Maunsell Sea Fort from pirate radio broadcasters, settled his eccentric family on it, and defended their tiny kingdom from UK government officials and armed mercenaries for half a century. Incorporating original interviews with surviving Sealand royals, Dylan Taylor-Lehman recounts the battles and schemes as Roy and his crew engaged with diplomats, entertained purveyors of pirate radio and TV, and even thwarted an attempted coup that saw the Prince Regent taken hostage. Incredibly, more than fifty years later, the self-proclaimed independent nation still stands—replete with its own constitution, national flag and anthem, currency, and passports.
Featuring rare vintage photographs of the Bates clan and their unusual enterprises, this account of a dissident family and their outrageous attempt to build a sovereign kingdom on an isolated platform in shark-infested waters is the stuff of legend.
“Memorable . . . This idiosyncratic history entertains.” ―Publishers Weekly
“Endlessly captivating, like a thriller, and filled with crisp, evocative writing. Now, you’ll have to excuse me, I’m visiting the principality to become an official ‘Lord of Sealand.’” ―Bob Batchelor, author of The Bourbon King
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Taylor-Lehman (Dance of the Trustees) delivers a granular history of the Principality of Sealand, a micronation established in 1967 on an anti-aircraft gun platform seven miles off the coast of Essex in the North Sea. After seizing control of Roughs Tower (one of the Maunsell Sea Forts built to defend England from German aircraft in WWII), pirate radio broadcaster Roy Bates and his wife and two children worked tirelessly to transform the decaying platform into a livable space. Using interviews with family members and U.K. government records, Taylor-Lehman retraces the Bates family's dogged efforts to get Sealand recognized as a sovereign nation and hold off would-be invaders. The Bateses have engaged with diplomats around the world and capitalized on their principality by renting space for offshore data storage, printing Sealandic stamps and money, and offering Sealandic nobility titles for sale on the internet. Though the narrative meanders and sometimes gets trapped in a whirlpool of unnecessary details, Taylor-Lehman delivers a memorable portrait of one family's attempt to escape, as Prince Roy Bates puts it, the world's "damn bureaucracy." This idiosyncratic history entertains.