The Stories And Symbols Behind The Flags Of The World

What does a flag say about the country that flies it? Journalist Tim Marshall looks at the stories behind dozens of the world’s flags in the new book “A Flag Worth Dying For: The Power and Politics of National Symbols.”

Marshall (@Itwitius) joins Here & Now‘s Peter O’Dowd to talk about the book.

Book Excerpt: ‘A Flag Worth Dying For’

By Tim Marshall

“I am no more than what you believe me to be and I am all that you believe I can be.” — The American flag in a conversation as imagined by Franklin K. Lane, US secretary of the interior, Flag Day, 1914

On 9/11, after the flames had died down and the dust had mostly settled, three FDNY firefighters clambered onto the still-smoking wreckage of the World Trade Center in New York City and raised the Stars and Stripes.

The event was not planned, and there were no official photographers; the three men just