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

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A riveting, adrenaline-fueled tour of a vast, lawless, and rampantly criminal world that few have ever seen: the high seas. There are few remaining frontiers on our planet. But perhaps the wildest, and least understood, are the world's oceans: too big to police, and under no clear international authority, these immense regions of treacherous water play host to rampant criminality and exploitation. Traffickers and smugglers, pirates and mercenaries, wreck thieves and repo men, vigilante conservationists and elusive poachers, seabound abortion providers, clandestine oil-dumpers, shackled slaves and cast-adrift stowaways—drawing on five years of perilous and intrepid reporting, often hundreds of miles from shore, Ian Urbina introduces us to the inhabitants of this hidden world. Through their stories of astonishing courage and brutality, survival and tragedy, he uncovers a globe-spanning network of crime and exploitation that emanates from the fishing, oil, and shipping industries, and on which the world's economies rely. Both a gripping adventure story and a stunning exposé, this unique work of reportage brings fully into view for the first time the disturbing reality of a floating world that connects us all, a place where anyone can do anything because no one is watching.

“A superb account of the rise of modern broadcasting.” —Financial Times When the pirate operator Oliver Smedley shot and killed his rival Reg Calvert in Smedley’s country cottage on June 21, 1966, it was a turning point for the outlaw radio stations dotting the coastal waters of England. Situated on ships and offshore forts like Shivering Sands, these stations blasted away at the high-minded BBC’s broadcast monopoly with the new beats of the Stones and DJs like Screaming Lord Sutch. For free-market ideologues like Smedley, the pirate stations were entrepreneurial efforts to undermine the growing British welfare state as embodied by the BBC. The worlds of high table and underground collide in this riveting history.

This book teaches readers the basics of building a nation and highlights events that have shaped countries throughout history.

Fear of invasion forms the basis of firstsite's latest exhibition and a series of related offsite projects, If Ever You're in the Area, developed by Cambridge-based artist Bettina Furnee. Ongoing, site-specific works on the Suffolk Coast are complemented by gallery works that explore similarities between differing forms of invasion, militaristic and environmental. The encroachment of the sea eroding the cliffs stands alongside the threat of wartime landings. Ideas around fear of attack and rituals of commemoration are explored in small-scale, ephemeral arrangements of objects. Ambiguous titles invite contemplation: Beachhead, Lines of Defence, Plain Sailing, Beached, Lost on the beach and It's a free country. The works consider some of the customs and rites we have devised to endorse and protect ourselves and our morality at important moments of change."

Alastair Bonnett explores extraordinary, off-grid, offbeat places including micro-nations, moving villages, secret cities, and no man's lands. Consider Sealand, an abandoned gun platform off the English coast that a British citizen claimed as his own sovereign nation, issuing passports and making his wife a princess. Or Baarle, a patchwork city of Dutch and Flemish enclaves where crossing the street can involve traversing national borders. Or Sandy Island, which appeared on maps well into 2012 despite the fact it never existed.