The Great Departure: Mass Migration from Eastern Europe and the Making of the Free World

Written by Tara Zahra

Narrated by Elizabeth Wiley

In this riveting book, Tara Zahra takes the story of immigration that Americans know so well and weaves it into a larger story of emigration that we have long neglected. In this riveting book, Tara Zahra takes the story of immigration that Americans know so well and weaves it into a larger story of emigration that we have long neglected. With all the drama of a novel and all the nuance of history writing at its best, The Great Departure is a must-read. (Alison Johnson, Harvard University) In this spare, deeply researched, and unfailingly analytical book, Tara Zahra frees the great migration of Eastern Europeans to the West from romantic myth and dissects all its human and moral complexities. (Robert D. Kaplan, of In Europe's Shadow: A Journey Through Two Cold Wars in Romania and Beyond) With a combination of deft historical analysis, sparkling prose, and careful attention to individual stories, both poignant and instructive, Tara Zahra systematically deconstructs the myths surrounding emigration, escape, and deportation from Eastern Europe since the late nineteenth century. The Great Departure is brimming with important and suggestive lessons from the past for thinking about the worldwide dynamics of emigrants and refugees in our own day. (Norman M. Naimark, Stanford University) Meticulously researched, The Great Departure shows mass emigration from all sides, including individual stories of poverty and maltreatment—but also positive changes emigration brought to women . . . This book is equally relevant for Americans, showing why and how many of their ancestors left their countries, and for Europeans, confronted with an unprecedented wave of immigrants today. (Slavenka Drakulic, author of A Guided Tour through the Museum of Communism) About the Author Tara Zahra is a professor of Eastern European history at the University of Chicago and the author of two award-winning books, Kidnapped Souls and The Lost Children.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Highbridge Company
• Release date: Mar 21, 2016
• ISBN: 9781681680170

Reviews for The Great Departure

[akbouterse · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I read this for a class I was taking about Eastern European history but I think this is a book that is very easy to read. I wasn't my favorite book in the world because Eastern European History is not my favorite history topic but if you do like that topic and you're interested in immigration, this is a great book for you

[kukulaj · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a bit of a shotgun, a dive into random details concerning emigration from Eastern Europe to other places around the world, largely the USA and Western Europe but also e.g. the Dominican Republic and Madagascar. The book doesn't really have a crisp thesis; the focus is on blurred boundaries. Which people are White? Which people are European? Which people are civilized? Which people are slaves? Are people being pushed out or are they being allowed to go? Are people being forbidden to travel or being protected from exploitation?

This book covers roughly 1890 to 2010. Maybe the traffic talked about most is from Poland to France, but we hear too about East Germans and Czechoslovakians and Hungarians. Russians didn't get much of a chance to go anywhere! There's quite a bit about Jews getting pushed here and there.

No country comes out looking very noble here. All countries want to admit folks who will be good citizens and wants to block or deport people who are lazy, criminal, or difficult in any way. Border control agents make judgments based on prejudice concerning race, religion, ethnicity, etc.

This is a book that kind of soaks a person in the complexities and ambiguities of migration. At the very least, the reader will pick up some history. And anybody who thinks the problem is simple, who sees the issues as crisp black and white... they'll be exposed to a full plate of nuances, whether they choose to ingest them or not.