Publication: January, 2027, Monthly Review Press
Website: You can pre-order at NYU Press or Amazon now.
Description:
Why Did I Not Die with My Family? offers an intimate and unflinching account of the so-called European refugee crisis, told first and foremost through the voices of the people who endured it. Refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, West Africa, and beyond describe in their own words the impossible conditions that drove them from home, the perilous journeys across the sea, the desert, and along the Balkan route, and the harsh reality of confinement in camps on the Aegean islands. Their testimonies speak of fear and violence, but also of dignity, humor, friendship, and resilience in the face of systemic neglect.
Alongside these personal narratives runs a critical analysis of how European governments responded to the largest forced displacements since World War II. Instead of offering safe passage or honoring international obligations, the EU pursued a so-called Fortress Europe policy whose primary aim was deterrence. Overcrowded camps where asylum seekers were detained in inhumane conditions for years, violent pushbacks at sea and on land, the criminalization of sea rescue, and agreements with countries with dubious human rights records: All were designed to keep people out. These policies, framed using terms like “security” and “national sovereignty,” often amounted to violations of refugee and human rights law.
By weaving lived experience together with historical and political context, the book exposes the deeper legacies of colonialism, inequality, and global extraction that continue to drive displacement. It challenges the comforting myths of European humanitarianism, revealing how wealth and security are preserved at the expense of human lives. At the same time, the book insists on hope: the persistence of solidarity networks, the courage of refugees themselves, and the possibility of a more just response. It is both a record of suffering and a call to remember that behind every statistic lies a human story.
Praise:
“Informative, lucid, and deeply affecting. I strongly recommend Richard Hardigan’s book.” ~Norman Finkelstein
“Behind every statistic is a human being. Richard Hardigan gives voice to those too often reduced to numbers, headlines, or political talking points. Through powerful testimony and careful research, this book offers a compelling account of displacement, survival, and the human consequences of Europe’s border policies.” ~Tommy Olsen, Founder, Aegean Boat Report
“True to his legacy as a writer dedicated to unveiling truths through lived human experiences, Richard Hardigan once again establishes himself as a master of people’s history. Why Did I Not Die with My Family? delivers unadulterated truth grounded in historical context. This volume is far more than a mere recounting of the horrors refugees face in Europe, or a critique of the continent’s brutal, selective migration policies; it offers a holistic framework for understanding the root causes of the displacement crisis and the West’s undeniable culpability in engineering it. Why Did I Not Die with My Family? is an indispensable document — not only so that future historians may comprehend what transpired during the pivotal decade following the 2015 influx, but to understand what is unfolding today, and what will inevitably occur tomorrow if this hypocrisy, double-dealing, and moral collapse are not remedied for good.” ~Dr. Ramzy Baroud, editor, Palestine Chronicle; author, “Before the Flood” and “My Father Was a Freedom Fighter“
“Drawing on gripping personal narratives of refugees and first-hand reporting from the front lines, Richard Hardigan exposes the heartbreaking tragedies of migration to Europe. An essential guide to understanding one of the defining issues of our time.” ~Reece Jones, author, “Smuggler: Drugs, Gangs, and Refugees at America’s Northern Border“
“An important contribution to humanizing the millions of people seeking sanctuary in Europe. Hardigan skillfully ties the human stories to a clear headed analysis of the conflicts driving asylum seekers across the sea and exposes the political resistance that underpins the shocking welcome that they receive when they arrive.” ~Ben Rawlence, author, “City of Thorns,” “The Treeline” and “Think Like a Forest”
“A vital insight into the ongoing human cost of Europe’s deadly border policies.” ~Daniel Trilling, author, “Lights in the Distance: Exile and Refuge at the Borders of Europe”
“Richard Hardigan’s masterpiece weaves personal stories with important historical and political contexts, covering not just the horror of Europe’s recent refugee crisis, but also the resilience and the solidarity. There is much for the reader to get angry about regarding the failures of European governments to live up to their moral and legal obligations, but there are also important lessons that might better enable us to mitigate such tragedies in the future” ~Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics and Director of Middle Eastern Studies University of San Francisco
“Humanising the most vulnerable in our world has a long and noble history and this important book contributes to the genre with compassion and insight. As refugees are demonised as a threat, listen to the voices of people who deserve our support and understanding. Humanity and sense can win.” ~Antony Loewenstein, independent journalist, film-maker and author of “The Palestine Laboratory“
“Why Did I Not Die with My Family? is a searing, ground-level account of Europe’s refugee crisis, following individuals through the camps, borders, and forests that define the continent’s response to displacement. Hardigan doesn’t flinch from the brutal machinery that thrives in these gaps—the smugglers and traffickers who profit from desperation, and the organized crime networks that turn a humanitarian crisis into a criminal marketplace. The result is essential, humane reporting on a system that fails the people it claims to protect.” ~Tuesday Raitano, co-author of “Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Saviour”
“Why Did I Not Die with My Family? is a hard book to put down. It tells the story, in excruciating detail, of the global migration crisis and the failure of the EU to develop an appropriately humanitarian response. The political response has, so far, been framed in large part by the discourse of denial, blame, punishment and deterrence that has been promoted by the far right. They have both demonized migrants and turned a blind eye to the bigger systemic issues. This book sets out to correct the violent and deluded images that dominate public debates on migration. It not only gives insights into the conditions that migrants face, but also provides a vehicle for the migrants to tell their own story. If this does not force politicians, policy makers, media figures and ordinary people to put pause on their reflex use of stereotypes and develop a new vocabulary and perspective on the migrant crisis, then I don’t know what will!” ~Nikos Papastergiadis, Professor of Media and Communications, University of Melbourne, and author of “The Turbulence of Migration“
“A thorough, riveting, and often heartbreaking book. Hardigan collects decades of stories into a coherent analysis of the so-called refugee crisis in Europe. Part journalism, part scholarship, part anthropology, and part historiography, Why Did I Not Die with My Family? is impossible to put down.” ~Steven Salaita, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, The American University in Cairo
“Richard Hardigan’s Why Did I Not Die with My Family? is a deeply moving account of the experiences of refugees and migrants making their way to Europe. Drawing on years spent working in camps, along the Balkan route, and aboard rescue ships in the Mediterranean, Hardigan brings us extraordinarily close to people too often reduced to statistics and political abstractions. His vivid reporting illuminates the enormous dangers, hardships, and indignities they encounter along the way and after arrival. Whatever one’s views on the extraordinarily difficult challenges migration poses for Europe, Hardigan reminds us that those at the center of these questions are individual human beings, each with a story that deserves to be heard.” ~Sarah Whitson, former director, Human Rights Watch, Middle East and North Africa division
“Richard Hardigan’s powerful new book aims to open our eyes to the human tragedies inflicted by what he calls “Europe’s War on Refugees.” He does this by interweaving expert analysis of the European Union’s migration policy with testimony from its victims and a barely contained sense of moral outrage at the gap between Europe’s human rights rhetoric and its cruel policies of deterrence, border violence and incarceration. Most European human rights activists and scholars focus only on current or recent events and policies on our continent. Hardigan takes a much-needed wider view by looking at the situation in countries of origin, the role that Western imperialism and colonialism played in contributing to that situation, and then dissecting migration control policies and practices that are invisible to most of the public in Europe. This is a very well-written analysis with a strong sense of mission. It is a terrific contribution to a debate we urgently need.” ~Nils Muižnieks, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, 2012-2018
“Fortress Europe’s logic is absurd, and Richard Hardigan makes you see it in full: a continent whose own imperial and neoliberal policies bear much of the responsibility for a refugee crisis now takes in the smallest fraction of those fleeing, while the true weight falls on already-stretched states in the Global South like Lebanon. Getting inside the camps, Hardigan lets refugees speak for themselves — portraits so vivid they turn abstract news figures and generic boat photos back into people, in the true surroundings of stateless camp life. So well does he humanise the absurdity and suffering of their stories in Greek camps such as Moria that I feel the great ancient playwrights could turn these tales into heart-wrenching tragicomedy. It’s an indictment of the corporate media’s silence on Europe’s inhumane deterrence of refugees, and a warning to act: as the far right rises and climate collapse accelerates, the millions displaced today are a preview of the billions to come.” ~Robin Boardman, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion
“Richard Hardigan draws on years of deep reporting and immersive field research to expose a European asylum system deliberately designed to deter, exhaust, exclude, and kill those most in need of refuge. Driven by the testimonies of asylum seekers themselves, Why Did I Not Die with My Family is an unsparing, essential account of an ongoing humanitarian tragedy.” ~Peter Tinti, co-author of “Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Saviour”
““Why Did I Not Die with My Family?” shows that the absurdity of the European and global mobility regime can be enforced only with border violence. Through Hardigan’s first-hand experience and his accessible writing, readers learn that border violence includes death by policy, including at sea and in deserts. They see the torment of having one’s life placed on hold by asylum bureaucracies, in the limbo of processing and repatriations facilities. They understand policies and rhetorics of deterrence and externalization, particularly following the Arab “Spring” Uprisings. They appreciate that so-called crises, and the proximate and
systemic causes bringing people to search for a safe haven, are always intersecting. Readers learn all of this from Mohamed, Paolo, and many other refugees met by Hardigan aboard the Sea Watch, on Greek islands, and along their trek across Balkan countries. In this heartfelt account, people are not symbols, or threats, or statistics. They are not passive victims, or saints. They simply try to navigate the unapologetic hostility that may emerge both in countries of origin and in Greece, Libya, Israel, Italy, and Tunisia (among other countries), and the obstacles that European Union and national authorities put on their way. Europe’s “war on refugees,” as rigorously told by Hardigan and as experienced by the refugees he met, needs to become part of academic and civic curricula everywhere. In their residually liberal-democratic spaces, readers will not be able to claim ignorance. They will also see that pockets of humanity continue to exist and to resist, including in complicated cities such as Sarajevo. While alternative policies and ideas are also presented in the book, an author cannot tell readers what to do. Thus, do we join in solidarity, or perpetuate the war on refugees?” ~Maurizio Albahari, author, “Crimes of Peace: Mediterranean Migrations at the
World’s Deadliest Border”
“The refugee journey is an ordeal and, in many cases, epic, though I hesitate to use this term as it is blended with tragic elements. For many who have not experienced refugees’ lives or been around stories of refugees, there is an inherent image about refugees within them. This image is blended with a long history of dehumanization, victimization, and criminalization, though for some, even romanticization of refugees. This book is one of the most compelling books that I have ever read that powerfully challenges this colonial image of refugees. This book is not only important from a political and colonial aspect, but also in the way it creates space for refugees themselves to share their stories and knowledge. This is fundamentally important, as most academic works about refugees treat refugees in a way that undermines their agency as passive subjects. This book is the opposite, and we clearly see how refugees contribute to the project as equals to the author, and I understand it as a radical approach towards refugee matters. This approach humanizes refugees as ordinary people like any other human being.” ~Behrouz Boochani, award-winning Kurdish writer, journalist, scholar, cultural advocate and filmmaker, author of “No Friend But the Mountains” (2018) and “Freedom, Only Freedom” (2022)
“Richard Hardigan’s book is an essential document chronicling the far too often invisible costs of the European Union’s efforts to stop migration and a testament to the humanity of those Europe is seeking to keep out. It should be essential reading for the citizens of all countries enacting policies of deterrence at their borders.” ~Eric Reidy, Migration and Special Coverage Editor and Reporter at “The New Humanitarian“
“Hardigan trades philosophical debate for something far harder and far more useful: the actual stories of the people living it. A vital act of humanization, especially for LGBT Arabs, whose lives have gone largely untold.” ~Dr. Nas Mohamed, Founder and President, Alwan Foundation; Qatari human rights activist.
“Why Did I Not Die With My Family? is a powerful and compelling indictment of the European Union’s bordering regime and the resounding failure of global north countries to recognize their complicity in producing forced migration and respond to human mobilities with anything but inhumanity. Hardigan expertly weaves together scholarly and grey literatures and data with his interlocuters’ stories and his own experiences as volunteer and witness. This highly accessible, engaging—and heartbreaking—book is an excellent resource for folks who want to more fully understand the lived experiences of border control which are typically hidden from mainstream media and political discourse. Hardigan persuasively demonstrates the political choices that sanction and perpetuate racialized violence and harm against refugees and migrants seeking protection at European borders, reminding us that a different world is possible.” ~Sarah Turnbull, Associate Professor of Sociology and Legal Studies, University of Waterloo