"Offers a deep, multifaceted understanding of mass migration."
Times Higher Education - Hester Vaizey
"A meticulous multilayered account of the relationship between physical mobility and political liberty, and the often fleeting manner in which one or the other is restricted out of expediency."
Los Angeles Review of Books - Benjamin Cunningham
"Meticulously researched, The Great Departure shows mass emigration from all sides, including individual stories of poverty and maltreatment—but also positive changes that 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."
"Provocative….[Zahra has] uncovered a narrative that is complex, multifaceted."
Chicago Tribune - Julia M. Klein
"Erudite and exciting…[C]ombines analytical depth with an impressive breadth of personal human stories."
Financial Times - Tony Barber
"A perceptive history of migration and eastern Europe."
02/29/2016
"A perceptive history of migration and eastern Europe."
"Zahra handles this immensely complicated and multidimensional history with remarkable clarity and feeling."
Foreign Affairs - Robert Levgold
"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. Full of hope and promise, of desperation and tragedy, it is perhaps the most important story of the twentieth century. With all the drama of a novel and all the nuance of history writing at its best, The Great Departure is a must-read."
"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."
03/01/2016
In a year when immigration is a major issue, this audiobook is especially timely and instructive. It tells the story of the greatest era of population movement the world has ever seen through personal stories and historical writing that tells why some people left and thrived and others went back to where they came from. Narrator Elizabeth Wiley approaches the material using a professorial tone and clipped diction that accentuates the history. She reads the facts well, pronounces the myriad Eastern European names accurately, and keeps the book moving. However, she doesn’t provide enough emphasis on the book’s personal and emotional components. While her delivery is authoritative, she misses making a connection with the listener. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine
★ 2016-01-26
