A Map of Future Ruins: On Borders and Belonging

by Lauren Markham

A provocative, virtuosic inquiry that reveals how the valorization of migrations past is intimately linked to the exclusion and demonization of migrants today

When and how did migration become a crime? Why have “Greek ideals” remained foundational to the West’s idea of itself? How have our personal migration myths—and nostalgia for times past—shaped today’s troubling realities of nationalism and fortified borders?

In 2021, Lauren Markham went to Greece to cover the aftermath of a fire that had burned down the largest refugee camp in Europe. Almost no one had wanted the camp—not humanitarian activists, not the country’s growing neo-fascist movement, not even the government, which resented the disproportionate responsibility it bore for an overwhelming international human rights problem. But almost immediately, in spite of scant evidence, six young Afghan refugees were arrested for the crime.
As she immersed herself in the story, Markham saw that it was part of a larger tapestry, rooted not only in centuries of global history but also in the myths we tell ourselves about who we are.

A mesmerizing, trailblazing synthesis of reporting, history, memoir, and essay, A Map of Future Ruins helps us see that the stories we tell about migration don’t just explain what happened. They are oracles: they predict the future.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Politics, Memoir, Audiobook, Greece, Social Justice

263 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 13, 2024

Reviews

[Traci Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Markham’s writing style. She’s playing a lot with form, voice, authority, and structure which works and doesn’t throughout the book. It’s very ambitious which I love but also lacks a bit of flow and/or clarity. What she has to say about immigration is thoughtful and carrying and comes from a place that invigorates the work.
Overall solid.

[Emma Wilbur · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this and it just did not do it for me. I think it tried to do too many things and failed to do any of them successfully. It flirts with social theory but is not really an academic text; it explores political analysis but does not go deep enough. I was also just not really a fan of the mixing of the personal travel stories through Greece - I didn’t think it added much and failed to be thoroughly reflexive. This is a topic close to my heart and I wanted more.

[Monserrat · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I first started reading this and I wasn’t sure it would be for me because I didn’t know a lot about Greece’s political situation so I was scared it wouldn’t be something I’d easily understand. However, it turned out to such an easy read that quickly had me enthralled with all that I was learning about Greece and migration from all over.

I loved the way in which the author makes so many good points throughout and all the topics that are talked about are all so important and it made me realize many of us don’t know about them which makes it even more important to talk and read about.

One of my favorite aspects of this piece of journalism would definitely have to be the way in which this piece seems to be for everyone whether you can relate to the situations that are being discussed or not , the reader can find themselves discovering themselves through the sections as Markham did a great job of connecting humanity and our habits to the greater aspect of immigration and belonging somewhere.

I also absolutely loved Markham’s writing style as she plays a lot with structure, voice and authority and it all just blends in so well to where every chapter had be thinking and rethinking my own opinions and everything I thought I knew.

This book taught me so much and made me want to learn more and I truly believe anyone and everyone should read this as it is important to be able to see things for how they truly are.

[Tree]

DNF. This book was recommended to me so I wanted to give it a try, but I find it irritating and dumb.
The author jumps from one story to the next and the only consistent through line is this sorry attempt to overturn what she thinks the reader knows about history, but what she shares is obvious and well known. Ugh. No thank you.

[Katie Drawdy · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first real audiobook. I've honestly never read anything like this book, from the journalism aspect to the grappling with inheriting stories, culture, and people that feel like they should be yours but are separated from you by a very sizable chasm that would render any attempt at identifying with it odd and wrong, for good reason. Markham draws on multiple lines of thought - such as the arbitrariness of borders when migration has always been natural and necessary, the morality of accepting refugees and immigrants and expats (the line between which are, at best, blurred), the mythology of the West and its reverence for its distorted birthplace in ancient Greece and how that mythology acts as a lens for all who visit and think about modern Greece - and beautifully brings them together. She confronts one increasingly ubiquitous line of thinking that associates criminalization and fear with those are deemed to not belong because they do not fit the historical myth that only a certain people, the ones who currently occupy that land, are the only ones who have and can live there and call it home. This line of thinking ignores the constant motion that nature and people always in, ignores the fact that the future does not belong to the past and acceptance of all is the only way forward. Will definitely serve as a jumping off point for me as I explore the relationship between collective memory, nostalgia, and the yearn for an identity larger than the self.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

So this book is absolutely stunning. To me, it perfectly wove together migration, borders, crime, Greece as a modern entity and Greek as a race, the environment, belonging, how we tell each other our stories and to ourselves… all in chapters that spared no extra word, they each packed such a punch. There are no solutions here which I think is part of the impact to me. It’s not uplifting. Just hard stories about the way we treat each other and how countries treat the worst off of the world arriving at their shores. I would recommend this to anyone but some might find the flow pretty abrupt (it kept me interested) or too ambitious (but everything is if you dive deep enough).

I have approximately one million highlights, but: “There they were in the water below: eighty people flailing in the chop, screaming for help. He hung the sandbag and dipped the crane into the ocean. The sandbag was big enough for two people to hold on to it at a time while he lifted them back up to land. ‘The waves were wild, deadly,’ he recalled. He lowered the crane and lifted, lowered and lifted, hoisting the travelers from the water two by two. He’d never run the crane that hard before. ‘Even though they say that souls are like feathers, they are heavier than iron,’ he would later comment. He worked until he’d pulled eighty people up to shore, until no one was left shouting in the frothing sea below.”

[Bianca Rogers · Rating 5 out of 5]

In A Map of Future Ruins, Lauren Markham masterfully intertwines her family’s intimate migration story with the broader forces of global upheaval. By tracing her lineage through waves of displacement, Markham uses contemporary Greece as a reflective crossroads—a place where climate catastrophe, mass migration, and questions of identity collide with stark clarity. Her evocative prose transforms this Mediterranean landscape into a prism for exploring humanity’s most urgent dilemmas: Who belongs? Who survives? And what becomes of sovereignty when borders dissolve?

Markham’s unflinching analysis of migration, spanning epochs and continents, reveals a grim continuity: the fortified borders and criminalization of refugees today echo age-old patterns of exclusion. She incisively critiques the hypocrisy of wealthy nations whose policies fuel climate destruction while denying refuge to those displaced by it. With sharp insight and profound empathy, A Map of Future Ruins challenges readers to confront a central paradox of our age: the nations most responsible for global displacement are often the least willing to offer sanctuary.

[Pearl · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book and one that seems like it will be, somewhat unfortunately, timeless. For as long as there have been people living in organized society, there has been conflict that keeps groups deemed unwanted out and causes innocent people to flee their homes and loved ones for their lives. And with today’s global migration climate, I don’t see this dramatically changing soon.

I really loved the focus on the importance of storytelling. How stories connect us to the past, present, and future, as well as to people or places we will never know. There are so many great quotes, myths, and stories in this book. I felt so close to so many of the people the author introduced in this book because of how she told their stories. I’ve never been to Greece, but I found myself looking at Google Earth the other day at the islands the author visited scanning for the locations in the book with a fondness that was surprising.

I’m not sure for sure if the main takeway of the book is supposed to be the power of stories or if it’s the cycle of change in what is where someone is “from” or if it’s the tragedy of the cycle of violence tied to immigration and refugee policies. I’m not sure one of these needs to be the “main” point but it doesn’t make deciding what to say about the book difficult because there was just so much covered- or at least it made me think about so much. Particularly the injustice we continue to see at border crossings throughout the world. The author does a really great job of describing the economic pros of accepting refugees while acknowledging the difficulties on the current systems. She gives great insights into more humane processes for immigrants of all kinds. I do hope people who speak against accepting immigrants are willing to open their hearts to some of these ideas, and at the very least listen to these stories.

[Loretta · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a blend of personal narrative and journalistic reflection on the state of immigration and refugees in the world today, as seen primarily through the lens of refugees entering Greece. I thought it did a good job of looking back through time to the immigration story of the author's own family, which is the immigration story of many, many American families and then drawing the lines between that and immigrants today.

If I had any quibble with the book it's that the narrative surrounding the Moria 6 seems sort of shoe-horned into it, like the author started a book on immigration, found this terrible thing that happened, and then wanted to weave that in too. And while it IS an immigrant story, it feels a bit like a separate story (one that, sadly, is left hanging at the end of the book because it is ongoing).

Still, I would recommend this book as an overview of immigration past and present, sort of a large 'where are we right now?' snapshot. No real answers are presented, and I'm okay with that...I suspect we'd need a much more academic book to delve into that.

[Lisa Roney · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this book was brilliant and compassionate. What begins as an exploration of her own Greek heritage, a "home country" she longs to return to and know, becomes instead an examination of why and how borders across the world are policed and why people tend to migrate and flee their beloved homelands anyway. She examines a tragic fire in a Greek refugee camp, but also meanders in her thinking about belonging and its absence. If you're looking for straight nonfiction about the political aspects of migration, this is not the book for you, but what she does do is allow for how history, politics, personal sagas, and even mythology are all tied up in these issues of who "belongs" and who doesn't. It's told humanely (about both refugee migrants and those "at home" trying to deal with their ideals vs. the challenging realities), and the author allows herself to question all that she feels and sees. I liked it a lot!

[Abby Shade · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly had such a hard time rating this one. It was surprisingly beautiful and tender along with being informative. Sometimes the way this book meandered lost me a little bit and the tone was not always the most consistent, but that might be intentional. Tbh I think I need to read this book again during a less busy season! Overall, super agree with the main thesis and takeaways of this book. I just was not expecting it to be so Greece-centric, but now knowing that, I think on a second read I can be more focused on what I’m paying attention to.

[Casey (ish-i-ness) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I dont often read nonfiction books from cover to cover but I did this one. It could have been a bit more structured, but the narrative quality made it easy to consume as an audiobook, almost like listening to podcast. Lots of ideas about borders and how we define refugees vs immigrants that are worth thinking about. I guess I’d recommend it? But only if you’re looking for a decent nonfic audiobook. There’s not quite enough revelations for me to be excited about it.

[Sarah Tamsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intertextual and literary, this blend of journalism and personal narrative made me acutely aware of the dehumanizing Schrodinger’s-migrant apologetics inherent to borders and the global criminalization of migration.

[Aingeal Stone · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating memoir on Greece and their current refugee policies and camps.

[Gary Singh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here's what I wrote in the newspaper:
https://pacificsun.com/mapping-meanin...

[Diego Laboy · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The future is forever on its way to upend the past.”

Essential reading for anyone with a heart. Markham unpacks the conventional narratives of heritage and migration by juxtaposing the current refugee crisis in Greece with her own recent reckonings with her Greek heritage. Through these coevolving threads she outlines the West’s obsession with glorifying a pure past that never was as an excuse to perpetuate stereotypes of migrants from all over the world. Stereotypes, after all, are stories with profound consequences. My personal high point in the book was Chapter 13 where she discusses the conflict between the agency of migrants, whose lives are as vast as any of ours, and the inherent flattening of their stories that comes with journalistic advocacy.

“How we tell our stories determines individually and collectively, our ideologies, our policies, our actions, and the way we construct our physical worlds. For I knew… that a story is never just a story. A story is also an oracle. It tells the future.”

[Despina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I devoured this book in 24 hours. The writing was approachable and relatable, especially as a first-gen American, even though my family is much newer to the US than the author’s.

My one criticism of this book is that it tackles a lot of complicated subjects in a short book; sometimes it wasn’t clear if she was just providing context or trying to make a point. To that end, I see this book as a good conversation starter on the issues of belonging, borders and immigration.

This book successfully paints a picture of events on the ground within Greece and gives context for why Greece is under-equipped to handle large numbers of refugees. This is due to its own destitution, corrupt politicians and legal system and Greece’s relative unimportance to other EU countries.

Her discussion about ancient and modern Greece and how modern Greece has to play up its ancient days of glory to seek belonging and respect by northern and western Europe and the US is an idea I haven’t seen presented in this way. It was a powerful argument and relevant given the broader context of immigration and acceptance of immigrants into a society.

What was less successful was Markham’s brief allusion to a border-less solution without going in topotential solutions. The more humanitarian and less expensive case management approach to immigration vs detention is the one promising solution she mentions but only in a surface manner. Since she mentions a world without borders, I would have loved to see some discussion of why she would support this solution or how this could be feasible, because even with the problems with our current systems, I don’t understand how that would work.

Overall, I thought this was informative about the history of immigration, a great conversation starter of the politics surrounding immigration, an informative look at the situation in Lesbos, a tragic summing up of the case of the Moria 6 and of the internal Greek political problems contributing to all of this, with Markham’s personal family history woven throughout. This was an ambitious endeavor; I was left wanting more because it was so short given the depth and complexity of these issues. But overall, it was well done.

[Cindy Leighton · Rating 5 out of 5]

"In all these places I visited, I was coming to appreciate the anatomy of survival, and how entwined the ability to move is with the perpetuation of life on earth."

When and how did migration become a crime? Lauren Markham asks in this beautiful exploration of immigration through time and in our modern world. Sparked by her personal journey to Greece to find the homeland of her family, she explores the largest refuge camp in Europe that had burned. Six young Afghan refugees are quickly arrested for the fire, with very little evidence. She follows the path of these men, but also explores the larger ideas of why we have become so resistant to immigrants, even though almost all of us have immigration in our family history.

This is a beautiful personal memoir of her challenging journeys in Greece, struggling to find traces of her family. But it is also a larger look at why we have moved from welcoming and celebrating immigrants to detaining and imprisoning them. People leave countries and head to Europe and the US because "something about home has become unlivable." Immigration is not easy - leaving your family, friends, home culture and language - everything that is familiar and calm - for a great unknown. We celebrate our ancestors who were brave enough to make this journey. And Markham points out that much of the reason these other countries are in turmoil is because of the colonialism and imperialism of the West - the "imperial legacies, contemporary corruption, foreign plumder, environmental pillage, and capitalist greed." But then we have pulled the ladder up, no longer willing to help those who come behind us.

It's not just about the money. Capitalist leaders like Elon Musk are so concerned about plummeting birth rates - but of course, only birth rates of White people. Plenty of workers are available and willing to take the risk to move to the West to work - we are not facing a population shortage worldwide as some right wing politicians and business leaders would like us to believe - pushing women to have more babies. It's also not just about the money - immigrants work hard, for low wages. And if we wanted, we could provide them with a little help getting adjusted, for far less than it costs us to imprison or deport them. "While it costs taxpayer roughly $134 a day to keep someone in a detention center, the alternative,s such as case management and electronic moitoring, cost an average of roughly $4 a day." according to Markham. This book was published before the most recent increase in ICE budget and the building of prisons in the US for immigrants - the costs are increasing dramatically - but SOMEONE is making loads of money off building and staffing all these new detention centers/prisons. Not to mention all the $50,000 sign on bonuses and college loan forgiveness and high salaries of new ICE workers.

This is not a statistic, policy heavy book - it is an easy read that is part travelogue, part reflection, part new reporting on the refugees accused of starting the fire. It is a beautiful exploration of the importance of movement and the opposition to it.

[Grady · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a frustrating book. The topic - international migration - is important, and Lauren Markham doesn't pull any punches in describing the government of Greece's practice of ‘pushback’: intercepting refugees, and, against both Greek and international law, towing them back out to sea or stranding them on deserted islands. A shorter, more disciplined book on this topic would be devastating.

But, Markham seems drawn to a different approach, introspective in the manner of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, ruminating on her own travels in Greece and other places, and her family's experiences with migration. As she meanders through these reflections, she frequently deploys metaphor as tool to uncover deeper meanings - but that only works if you think metaphorical correspondences are more ‘real’ than the tangible facts of people’s lives. In the case of refugees and migrants carrying substantial physical and emotional burdens, the metaphors just feel precious.

Adding to the book’s challenges, Markham doesn't use footnotes, just a bibliography, and she relies on a few abstract ideas drawn from a handful of touchstone sources, such as Wendy Brown, Walled States, Waning Sovereignty (2014), on borders and identity; and Svetlana Boym, The Future of Nostalgia (2002), on historical and social memory. This makes the intellectual framework of the book feel thin. A Map of Future Ruins is at its most readable when recounting Markham’s conversations with random Greek people she meets, and when she tells the story of the refugees made scapegoats for the burning of the Moira camp - but those two aspects of the book are only awkwardly related to one another. I do like her portrayal of her husband, and the occasional examples of his poetry.

[Thomas Shevis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Migration and borders have become a flashpoint across the world, in a way that is both old and new. The author tells this global story through her experiences covering both the southern US border, and mainly the sea border in Greece.

In Greece, the author tells the stories of many immigrants from the middle east and Africa as they make the dangerous crossing of the Mediterranean. They are fleeing violence, oppression, hunger, economic instability. The same reasons for previous waves of migration. But natives and descendants of previous migrants see this as somehow different. Laws have been passed to lay out reasons why one is allowed to seek asylum in another country, or which country they should seek asylum in. Neo nazi groups have risen up, lashing out against a so called "white replacement." The migrants that make it to Greece or the US are treated little better than prisoners as they await asylum hearings that may be years away.

Study after study has shown that immigrants are a net boon to economies and tax revenues. It is a myth that migrants steal jobs. More jobs and businesses are inherently needed in a capitalist economy in order to meet the demands of a larger population.

We have criminalized the acts of migration and asylum seeking and refuse to truly address the reasons why these people feel they cannot stay in their home countries. Many of those reasons are directly related by actions the countries of the global north have taken to destabilize their governments and economies, along with the destruction of the global ecosystem.

We should all genuinely question what reason the nation state exists for, and why keeping people out is necessary for its existence.

Essential read, especially as current events across the world, and especially the UK in the last couple weeks, show that anti-immigrant sentiment is on the rise with violence and misinformation spreading faster than anyone can correct.

[Rich Yoast · Rating 4 out of 5]

This very readable book is both a journalist's travels to her ancestral home and a painful description of the world and treatment of migrant populations (in this case, Greece). I read this for my international relations book club in which we've also read other works on the world wide crisis of populations fleeing poverty, political repression and brutality, and the effects of climate change. Markham addresses a number of these and issues often left out of political discussions regarding migrations: how borders and race are intellectual creations imposed on real people and environments; the myths of and stories about racial and national identity; the reality of human migrations throughout time and the initial reactions of welcome often turning into anger, frustration and confusion. There are many fascinating stories about the author's travels around Greece seeking her familial origins, with a particular focus on a refugee camp on the island of Lesbos - and the trials of several members of the camp arrests and trial for burning the camp down.

Two short chapters especially caught my interest. One discussed the small Norway/Russia border that for a short time appeared open and allowed migrants from other countries to enter Norway via Russia. When the border was firmly closed it severely interrupted personal Russian/Norwegian travel back and forth, often for family visits, in an area far removed for both populations from their national capitals but closer to each other. Another chapter discusses how trees move to adapt to climate changes, including growing in higher altitudes - not different from human movement. From my own experience in New Mexico, we see what happens when a political border separates families and cultures which persist on living on both sides of the border and people, like animal and plant species, live on both sides despite the fiction of there being an organic, vs. politically contrived, border.

[Kailin Zen · Rating 5 out of 5]

So moved and inspired by this brilliant book.

Part journalism, part memoir - Markham follows the story of Ali and the six migrant boys falsely accused of burning down the Moira refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos in 2020, while also examining her own family history and Greek-American lineage, the meaning of human migration, national identity and borders.

What happened to these six boys, Afghan asylum seekers, three who were under the age of 18 — who were wrongfully accused? Four were sentenced in 2021. At the end of the book, they were offered an appeal and retrial court date was pushed back by one year to March of 2024, but this is all I can find of their updated story. I need to know what has happened since to them…

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3...

I was so moved by the intimate and humane way the author portrayed voices on both sides of the issue, from anti-migrant residents on the island, to the human rights lawyers and activists who work to protect the vulnerable — both in Europe and on the US-Mexican border — simply because it’s the right thing to do, and as the author shared of one human rights defender: “once you acknowledge that this is what you believe to be right, then you must do it. No matter if the desired impact seems feasible or realistic, no matter how difficult.”

Haunted by the stories of dangerous journeys by migrants across the Darien Gap, and the Mexican border. I couldn’t help being moved to tears by so many passages in this book. Written so beautifully, and researched with such care.

Best book I’ve read all year. So relevant to these times. It inspires me to do more meaningful work in this short life.

[Ubah Khasimuddin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was.....what to say. It is roughly about immigration and refugees and the flux of the world. Movement around the world. This is a non-fiction book. Written by a professional journalist, its a bit of a slice of this subject, nothing deep dive, which is what bothered me. I was hoping for more of a "Behind the Beautiful Forever's" about the Moria 6 (the author sort of follows the case of these 6 Afghan boys who were arrested and charged with causing a fire in a refugee camp there), but instead this book circles around the issues of migration. It is part memoir, part reporting, part stream of consciousness.
I can't say the book is bad, I read it in a week - it is pretty easy to move along and Markham is a reporter after all, so she knows how to write. But I was just hoping for more. I suppose I was thinking this book would be more of a scholarly work instead of a bunch of cobbled journeys and stories. If I had to make this book more streamlined, it would be to get rid of the author's own self-searching - she doesn't really seem to know much about her family history and even less about her Greek heritage; her wandering around Greece is not exciting and doesn't seem to move the story for me. I much preferred the parts of the book about the Moria 6 and about other refugee stories, about the pushbacks, about the Darian Gap stories, even the Ellis Island bits were fascinating.
This would probably be a good book for a ladies book club, just cursory enough, surface level enough to interest a ladies who lunch group, but not too taxing to make them feel bad or change a viewpoint or lifestyle.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lauren Markham adeptly combines her search for her family's past in Greece, reminding us of how so many of us are immigrants, with the horrors encountered by refugees in squalid camps in the U.S. and Europe who are seeking a reprieve from the environmental disasters, famine, and political or gang persecutions they face in their home countries. We have exploited or ignored the countries these refugees come from until the refugees have no choice but to seek asylum. Then, more often than not, they are turned away or treated like criminals. We do not live in a fair world, but how willing we are to overlook existences that could be ours, except for the accidents of where we were born, is beyond the pale.

Markham gives many examples of how inhumanely we treat these humans. One of the egregious examples was of refugee camps in Greece that were burned to the ground one night with many of the refugees trapped inside. Rather than looking for the real culprits, the Greek authorities randomly picked some of the refugee youths and blamed the fires on them. Years of bogus trials and imprisonment were then meted out to these innocent teens.

Very few people want to spend the money and effort necessary to help the refugees and their countries, but I think we should be ashamed of our lack of empathy and action.

[B.C. Salkind · Rating 4 out of 5]

First of all, thank you to Riverhead books for providing this ARC copy to me for review!

Now, where do I start with this book?

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I first went into reading it. I don’t know a lot about migration or the current political climate in Greece, so I was afraid this would be over my head, but I was surprised to find that I actually was able to glean a lot of understanding about the current situation in Greece and elsewhere regarding immigration and migration, and was pleasantly surprised by how this held my interest.

It was interesting how the author touches on so many points throughout this piece of journalism and it felt daunting, at times, to go from section to section. However, I will say, there were a few smaller points in this book that I found really interesting and now want to look further into on my own, like heritage and what that really means/is, how genetic testing can benefit and disadvantage us as a society, especially when it comes to migration and cultural identity, and what the political climate in other countries is looking like.

Honestly, this book gave a great overview of the situation and made me curious enough to want to do some more research on my own time.

[Love Jonson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book I both wanted to write myself and didn’t want to read. My maternal grandfather is from Lesvos (and the rest of my family from other parts of Greece). Last year I went to his hometown, Skala Eresou (also hometown of Sappho) and celebrated my lesbian-Lesbian roots that had long been hidden in shame. I visited the house he grew up in til he came to the U.S. at 19.

But the entire time I felt the simmering darkness of what I knew of the refugee crisis and Moria, even if the only evidence we saw of the latter was some old graffiti calling for its end. This book explores my people’s history of migration and their response to it—how we can so quickly forget that our pasts are the same as the people we castigate. I see this very often in the Greek-American community, at least where I’m from in the near-South, as it relates to immigration from the further-south.

It was fascinating and emotionally taxing to learn more about this at the source of my lineage. The book is about story and myth, including the story and myth of nation-building through borders. Markham does a fantastic job blending her astute reportage with her personal experiences (though I did wish for more of the latter, but that's probably a personal problem, a desire to know more people like myself!).

[Kathleen Dang · Rating 4 out of 5]

I went in with little knowledge about what exactly this book would be about (initially imagined it was more memoir-y), so i felt like i was doing an AP world reading when she got into the depths of Greek history, but it luckily picked up as Markham mingled her own experience searching for home/sense of belonging with the well-researched content. The research and narrative about the untrue and discriminatory stigmas surrounding immigrants/refugees and the denial of gross violations of international asylum laws brought me back to my Global Policy Issues and US Latin American Relations classes in undergrad. Given today’s political climate, this book is eye-opening and relevant to my past, present, and future. It’s sad to read through the anecdotes and realize they led to no happy ending, but it’s certainly important stay informed and spark conversation about the tragedies that continue to happen across the world. Even when you feel helpless about such major global issues, it’s the awareness and small acts of humanity that can accumulate and foster hope for change.

[Carol Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author begins a quest to discover her own Greek roots. She has reported extensively on immigration at our southern border already and this dovetails into that. First of all, the whole idea of ancient Greece was created after ancient Greece. The temple of Athena started out as something else and has been other things. Her husband went with her on her first trip to Greece and she learned that it is difficult to impossible to follow a map in Greece. Also there seem to be a lot of abandoned villages in Greece. The big takeaway is this however; when did we criminalize migration? These people are desparate. We treat these people horribly at our southern border, but we aren't unique and maybe not even the most inhumane. They are pretty bad in Greece. What makes us think our borders are sacred, like they are have always been and will always be? Especially in our country, they are not that old, and who drew that line, and what right did they have to do that? All answers that are available.) This book is nominated for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, which drew me to it.

[Steven Volk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shaped around the fire that destroyed the migrant camp in Moria, on the Greek island of Lesbos, Markham -- and exceptional immigration journalist -- argues that "...where our people came from helps determine who we are, and we cannot reckon with the injustices of contemporary migration without studying the migrations of the past – both the facts of these journeys and the way the accounts of them have been constructed in hindsight." She continues, "the way we tell stories isn’t a mere matter of decency or morality: by influencing the way events are understood…our stories determine the policies that are made and in turn whether people are welcomed in or deported home, jailed or set free – whether, even, they live or die. In this way our stories, and our fates, are all intertwined..."

[Darcia Helle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was initially hesitant about reading A Map of Future Ruins because books with political content can be dry and dull. Turns out, this book is the exact opposite.

The writing is evocative and engaging; the content is informative and profound.

From the first page, I had a strong sense of setting and atmosphere. I was there with the author every step of the way.

The author refutes the myth that early Western Europe was “white.” She shows us how and why immigration has been villainized.

But really, this book is so much more. It's part memoir, part historical exploration, and part current events, expertly woven together with the kind of conversational writing that makes me feel like I'm sitting with a friend.

*Thanks to Riverhead Books for the free copy!*