‘A sparkling tour through the stories of the symbols we know so well’ – Tim Marshall

Starting with flags that we know, this captivating history explains the origins and hidden meanings of flags, taking a chatty but always entertaining path through this universal subject. Each chapter starts with a well-known flag and shows how that flag led to a number of other flags – so, for example, how the French tricolor led to the red, white and green tricolor of Italy, and then to a host of other tricolors in different parts of the world.Many of the over 200 colour illustrations feature alternative versions of existing flags – the flags that might have been – such as the red Canadian maple leaf between two bands of blue, representing the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.