Micronations: Invent Your Own Country and Culture with 25 Projects, by Kathy Ceceri, illustrated by Chad Thompson, Nomad Press, 128 pages, $16.95

How To Start Your Own Country, by Erwin Strauss, Paladin Press, 170 pages, $20–$50 used

After the initial thrill of a few stamps on one's passport, the idea of touching down in yet another nation-state may seem jejune. After you've seen one nation-state, how truly different can another one be? Airports and highways with instantly navigable signage, cultures and cuisines flattened to meet the supply and demand of global trade, traditions reduced to photo opportunities—just more of the same.

The English essayist Samuel Johnson wrote that "the use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to s

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