蜜芽传媒

Every country has one; sometimes bellicose, sometimes wistful, occasionally jaunty and usually intensely patriotic. But what makes a good national anthem?

The journalist Alex Marshall has written a book on the subject, called Republic or Death: Travels in search of National Anthems.

He spoke to Nick Higham about some of the world's best-known anthems, some of the more unexpected, and why he dislikes our own quite so intensely.