Much of the world's politics revolves around questions about refugees and other migrating peoples, including debating the scope and limits of humanitarianism; the relevance of national borders in a globalized world; racist rhetoric and policies; global economic inequalities; and worldwide environmental disasters. There are no easy answers to these questions, but the decisions that all of us make about them will have tremendous consequences for individuals and for the planet in the future.

Ruptured Lives works from the premise that studying the history of refugee crises can help us make those decisions more responsibly. Examining conflicts--in Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Africa--that have produced migrations of people fleeing dangers or persecution, it aims to provide an intellectual framework for understanding how to think about the conflicts that produce refugees and the effects that refugee crises have on individuals and societies.