Albert Podell, a former editor of Playboy magazine, did what all of us fantasize about but very few achieve: He traveled to all 196 countries on Earth.
It took him 50 years. On the way he was chased by water buffalo, broke a few bones, ate weird foods, and was arrested, robbed, and almost lynched. But he lived to tell the tale in a new book, Around the World in Fifty Years: My Adventure to Every Country on Earth.
Talking from his home in New York, he addresses the thorny issue of what constitutes a country, pinpoints the best place to eat barbecued mice, explains why smartphones are making young people less adventurous, and tells us why his favorite place is still the United States.
Frank Zappa famously said, “You can’t be a country till you have a beer and an airline.” It’s not that simple, is it?
Frank Zappa’s quote also added that it helps to have a nuclear weapon, but the beer is the main thing. [Laughs]
So what is a country? The 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States lists five criteria for being a country. But what it really comes down to these days is what the five superpowers agree is a country. Everybody acknowledges that all members of the UN, all 193 of them, are countries. Full story...
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It took him 50 years. On the way he was chased by water buffalo, broke a few bones, ate weird foods, and was arrested, robbed, and almost lynched. But he lived to tell the tale in a new book, Around the World in Fifty Years: My Adventure to Every Country on Earth.
Talking from his home in New York, he addresses the thorny issue of what constitutes a country, pinpoints the best place to eat barbecued mice, explains why smartphones are making young people less adventurous, and tells us why his favorite place is still the United States.
Frank Zappa famously said, “You can’t be a country till you have a beer and an airline.” It’s not that simple, is it?
Frank Zappa’s quote also added that it helps to have a nuclear weapon, but the beer is the main thing. [Laughs]
So what is a country? The 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States lists five criteria for being a country. But what it really comes down to these days is what the five superpowers agree is a country. Everybody acknowledges that all members of the UN, all 193 of them, are countries. Full story...
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