Human Cargo: A Journey Among Refugees

By Caroline Moorehead

Book Overview

An arresting portrait of the lives of today's refugees and a searching look into their future The word refugee is more often used to invoke a problem than it is to describe a population of millions of people forced to abandon their homes, possessions, and families in order to find a place where they may, quite literally, be allowed to live. In spite of the fact that refugees surround us-the latest UN estimates suggest that 20 million of the world's 6.3 billion people are refugees-few can grasp the scale of their presence or the implications of their growing numbers. Caroline Moorehead has traveled for nearly two years and across four continents to bring us their unforgettable stories. In prose that is at once affecting and informative, we are introduced to the men, women, and children she meets as she travels to Cairo, Guinea, Sicily, the U.S./Mexico border, Lebanon, England, Australia, and Finland. She explains how she came to work and for a time live among refugees, and why she could not escape the pressing need to understand and describe the chain of often terrifying events that mark their lives. Human Cargo is a work of deep and subtle sympathy that completely alters our understanding of what it means to have and lose a place in the world.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805074430
• ISBN13: 9780805074437
• Release Date: March 2005
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.48 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.1" x 1.2" x 6.2"

Customer Reviews

Souls in Exile

This book might prove to be a groundbreaker in the world's understanding of refugees and their struggles. Caroline Moorehead interviewed many refugees who have suffered through a myriad of challenges, with coverage of many different refugee environments as well. Some examples include a shipwreck of boat people off of Sicily, Liberians facing discrimination in Cairo, and the warm welcome but lack of opportunity found by some Sudanese in Finland. Moorehead finds that there are many gray areas in the social problems that cause people to leave their home countries and drift into hopeless exile, and the millions of refugees in the world cannot be easily categorized into mere economic opportunists vs. people facing immediate threats of violence or warfare. The most remarkable aspect of this book is the common theme found in the lives of all sorts of refugees, notably the crushing feelings of aimlessness caused by the interminable limbo of asylum procedures, and living a stateless and unwanted existence with no known future improvement. Moorehead is prone to big statements at times, and borders on melodrama and guilt-tripping when trying to emphasize the human worth of the refugees. This is a problem in the long chapter on the Palestinians especially (though the previous reviewer is advised to see the forest for the trees). Some readers may also wonder about the accuracy of some of the refugee stories described herein. But regardless, the true strength of this book is that Moorehead was most concerned about allowing displaced people to tell their stories, without grandstanding or over-interpretation, and her dismissal of easy answers or big political pronouncements is especially refreshing. Hence, we learn about the continual struggles faced by millions and millions of people around the globe, who do not deserve to be ignored, locked up, or forgotten. [~doomsdayer520~]