ABOUT THIS BOOK

In his new book, Andreas Kossert—the renowned expert on emigration and expulsion in the twentieth century and author of the bestselling Cold Home—places the early twenty-first-century refugee movement in a wider historical context. Movingly told and interwoven with personal accounts, The Uprooted: The Refugee in World History reveals the existential experiences of uprootedness and hostility that go hand in hand with losing one's homeland, and explains why refugees and displaced persons have always found it so difficult to settle into a new country. Whether they have come from East Prussia, Syria, or India, refugees are agents of world history—and with this book Kossert gives them a voice.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

ANDREAS KOSSERT is a historian and author, who has lived in Berlin since 2010. He is the recipient of the Georg Dehio Book Prize in 2008, the NDR Culture Non-Fiction Prize in 2020, and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation's "The Political Book" Prize in 2021 for his work. Most recently, he published the bestseller Cold Home: The Story of German Expellees after 1945 and Eastern Prussia: The Story of a Historical Landscape.

JEREMIAH RIEMER is the translator of more than fifteen books and numerous articles by German-speaking scholars and journalists. Most recently, he has published Jewish Cattle Traders in the German Countryside, 1919–1939: Economic Trust and Antisemitic Violence by Stefanie Fischer and In Hitler's Munich: Jews, the Revolution, and the Rise of Nazism by Michael Brenner.

REVIEWS

"The plight of the refugee is timeless, even if it always confronts us in new historical permutations. In this brilliantly written and important book about displacement and flight, Andreas Kossert captures both dimensions. The result is a compelling portrait of a raw human drama that is as old as history itself and yet always contemporary. Kossert charts the contours of a mass phenomenon, but at the center of his pioneering study are individual refugees, their voices and destinies. This is a book for our times."

— Christopher Clark, author of Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947

“One cannot praise Kossert's book enough. It is empathetic and intelligent, with a clearly visible viewpoint.”

— Süddeutsche Zeitung (on the German edition)

“Overwhelming. . . . This historian has made use of sources that are normally not taken into account. As a result, the text evokes an unsettling vividness.”

— Augsburger Allgemeine (on the German edition)

"The Uprooted makes a huge contribution to our understanding of 'the' refugees. By listening to many different voices who have undergone the rigors of displacement and the calamity of exile, Kossert alerts us to both the peculiarities and the universality of the refugee experience. The prose is gripping and the translation compelling. Essential reading for anyone interested in the refugees and their loss."

— John Torpey, author of The Invention of the Passport: Surveillance, Citizenship, and the State

“Displacement and pursuit of refuge are issues as old as human civilization. Both are also defining and disruptive for contemporary politics. And the best place to start grasping the connections between age-old problems and present predicaments is Andeas Kossert’s The Uprooted. Kossert weaves together moving narratives, conceptual clarifications, and deeper analyses, though the last are always worn lightly and human experience foregrounded. Germany is at the center of his story, as both a country of uprooting and a host to many more recently uprooted. More examples come from the rest of Europe and the Near East. What it means to belong is addressed as well as what it means to flee. But in the end the main point of this compelling book is the historical ubiquity of refugees and, sadly, of limits on sympathy and hospitality. Well-written, well-translated, and very well-worth reading.”

— Craig Calhoun, University Professor of social sciences at Arizona State University

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Part I: Anyone Can Be A Refugee Tomorrow
Refuge, Emigrant, Displaced Person, Expellee, Exile—Some Definitions
The Endless Story of Flight

Part II: Homeland: Concerning the Ambivalence of a Feeling
Leaving
Arriving
Living On
Remembering
When Have You Arrived?

What Does Not End

Appendix
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index of Names
Image Credits