'Full of insight and rich detail, Matt Qvortrup's important new book provides an engaged and wonderfully engaging study of the passions and politics of state making.'

Alastair Bonnett, author of Off The Map and Beyond The Map

How do you create a new country? What steps do you need to take? How do you make a project management plan for secession and independence? In the past century more than one hundred new states have been established. As separatist movements and political parties from Scotland to Somaliland try to establish new nations, this unique and timely book offers a practical guide to creating a new country. If Machiavelli's The Prince provided a recipe for how to be a ruler in Renaissance Italy, this volume provides a clear and unsentimental step-by-step guide to making a new country in the twenty-first century.

Based on the author's personal experiences as a political advisor, I want to break free offers a practical guide for would-be creators of new states, outlining the legal, political and economic steps that need to be taken to make a new country.

This book is the first ever guide for those wishing to make a new state and for the choices they have to make: the good, the bad, and sometimes the ugly.