Along the Watchtower - by Nathan Akehurst (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Europe's war on migration is everywhere. This book unearths the forces behind it and how they've reshaped our society.

Thousands of people die preventable deaths at Europe's borders every year. And the situation keeps getting worse. From eastern Polish forest swamps to the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas to the corridors of power, Along the Watchtower describes how Europe's war on migration has spun out of control. Through the stories of people seeking safety and the humanitarians who assist them, a portrait of a vast machine of slander, surveillance, violence, and criminalisation emerges -- one that has spilled over from targeting migrants to putting us all at risk. States and profiteers have transformed the liberal Utopia, imagined by proponents of a bigger Europe, into an armed fortress willing to tear up the rights and values it once espoused. As climate breakdown, geopolitical shifts, and economic and political crises drive both a movement and a backlash against it, Along the Watchtower asks how we got here -- and how we might demand a different world before it's too late.

Review Quotes

By grinding wretched people migrating into raw material for its border-industrial complex, Europe forfeits its integrity and thus accelerates its disintegration. Along the Watchtower is a must read for those who wonder why Europe lost its way.--Yanis Varoufakis, economist, author and former Greek finance minister

About the Author

Nathan Akehurst is a writer, researcher, and human rights campaigner. After working in British politics he left the UK to study international development, and focused on US and European border militarisation, climate change, and geopolitics. He writes fiction and nonfiction, analysis and opinion for publications internationally, and is a regular contributor to Jacobin Magazine. He also volunteers in maritime search and rescue. He lives in London but is often to be found on the road.