It’s easy to find the anthems mentioned in the book online – try Wikipedia, the great nationalanthems.info, or even some of the sites dedicated to individual ones (you could get lost in the insane Russian Anthems Museum for days), but to save you a lot of Googling, I’ve made this guide. I hope it gives you an insight that my writing doesn’t!
Use the drop down menu above or click below to select a chapter.
1. France: the greatest anthem of them all
4. Japan: anthems and conflict
5: Kazakhstan: anthems in dictatorships
6. Liechtenstein and the UK: one song to the tune of another
7. Bosnia and Herzegovina: an anthem in need of words
8. The Islamic State: anthems and jihad
10: South Africa: trying to sing the rainbow, one anthem, five languages
12: Epilogue
And if you don’t want to go through all of those, here’s a Spotify playlist of some great covers of anthems, songs featuring anthems and, er, songs called anthems. Yes, it does finish with the whole of the 1812 Overture. No, there isn’t a better way to end a playlist than with la Marseillaise and a lot of cannons going off!