I’m not a sports fan in general, but I especially dislike soccer, something that should be left to children and foreigners. All the same, I was intrigued by a just-ended VIVA World Cup, which is a competition for nations that lack statehood. This year’s participants were Lappland (the PC term du jour is Sapmi), Padania (northern Italy), Provence, Iraqi Kurdistan, and the “Arameans Suryoye” (the Assyrians/Chaldeans/Suriani or whatever today’s label is). Others who’d expressed interest in participating included the Maasai, West Papua (the part of New Guinea occupied by Indonesia), Gozo (that was a new one to me — it’s the other island in Malta), Zanzibar, Tibet, Greenland, and Rijeka (the Croatian city called Fiume in Italian). I don’t just bring this up as a collection of curiosities — it’s another example of the power of national and cultural identity, the theme of Sharansky’s important new book.