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Davies' thesis is that because modern historians write from the perspective of successful states, we often forget about all the states that didn't make it to the twenty-first century. Great thesis and it caused me to preorder this book. He then goes on to discuss 15 states that no longer appear on the map. In addition, each chapter is divided into roughly three sections - a travelogue of the present area, some history of the area, and a description of the scholarship on the area. It is the third part that often presents the problems for me. I think that if it were better written, the third part could be great. But half the time Davies comes across as curmudgeonly, acting as if he knows better than all the other historians. For example, at the end of the chapter on Burgundy, he goes on. And on. And on about how his description of the history of Burgundy is the only complete one while everyone else is not. And then we are subjected to descriptions of encyclopedias and entries in search engines. The other main problem is that the descriptions of history read like a medieval history. There is precious little analysis - basically it reads like an encyclopedia entry itself. And that's a problem for me because the idea behind the book is really interesting. Perhaps Davies would have better availed himself of the material if he had written about half the places but with double the information. Then a chapter like the one on Byzantion (The Byzantine Empire) would not be the biggest joke of the book due to its extreme shortness. He should have just left it out. I would say to those considering reading this book to treat it as Lonely Planet: Lost Kingdoms rather than a serious scholarly history.