Every country exists in time and in space. This is a simple fact that is often taken for granted.
The spatial and temporal boundaries of a nation do not exist naturally, however. They are the result of definitions by politicians, soldiers, historians and cartographers. In modern education, nations, and nation states tend to be presented as fixed entities, and permanence rather than change tends to be emphasized.
Yet nations are less stable than their popular images often suggest. Or rather, the images themselves change even more than the nations do. This is what the title of Tessa Morris-Suzuki's book alludes to.