The Making of the Modern Refugee

by Peter Gatrell

The Making of the Modern Refugee is a comprehensive history of global population displacement in the twentieth century. It takes a new approach to the subject, exploring its causes, consequences, and meanings. History, the author shows, provides important clues to understanding how the idea of refugees as a 'problem' embedded itself in the minds of policy-makers and the public, and poses a series of fundamental questions about the nature of enforced migration and how it has shaped society throughout the twentieth century across a broad geographical area - from Europe and the Middle East to South Asia, South-East Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. Wars, revolutions, and state formation are invoked as the main causal explanations of displacement, and are considered alongside the emergence of a twentieth-century refugee regime linking governmental practices, professional expertise, and humanitarian relief efforts.

This new study rests upon scholarship from several disciplines and draws extensively upon oral testimony, eye-witness accounts, and film, as well as unpublished source material in the archives of governments, international organisations, and non-governmental organisations. The Making of the Modern Refugee explores the significance that refugees attached to the places they left behind, to their journeys, and to their destinations - in short, how refugees helped to interpret and fashion their own history.

Genres: School, History, Nonfiction

312 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

A historian specializing in population displacement in the modern world and the economic and social history of Russia, Peter Gatrell is emeritus professor at the University of Manchester. He earned his undergraduate and PhD degrees from the University of Cambridge.

Reviews

[Andrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic read on what actually defines a "refugee", who is allowed legal protections, and what it means to exist in a nation-state centric world. Recommend for anyone looking for global perspectives on the ongoing refugee crisis!

[Leif · Rating 4 out of 5]

Capacious, wide-ranging, and crucially argumentative: there's much here of worth. This book overwhelmed me and it took a long time to work through the chapters, but just because the scope here is vast. Helpfully, Gatrell maintains a clear-eyed vision on who is saying what: are narratives about refugees created by states, NGOs, or refugees themselves? Much here to think about!