Fortress Europe - Matthew Carr

For nearly thirty years the Berlin Wall symbolised a divided Europe. In the euphoric aftermath of the Cold War, the advent of a new 'borderless' world was hailed, one in which such barriers would become obsolete. Today these utopian predictions have yet to be realised. European governments have enacted the most sustained and far-reaching border enforcement program in history in an attempt to repel migrants seeking work or asylum. Detention and deportation, physical and bureaucratic barriers, naval patrols and satellite technologies: all these form part of the militarised response to immigration adopted by European governments, the human cost of which is often overlooked. These efforts have generated a tragic confrontation between some of the richest countries in the world and a stateless population from the poorest - a clash that occurs within Europe's territorial frontiers and also far beyond them. Fortress Europe investigates that confrontation on Europe's 'hard borders.' In a series of searing dispatches, Carr speaks to border officers and police, officials, migrants, asylum-seekers, and activists.The result is a unique and groundbreaking critique of Europe's exclusionary borders, and an essential guide to the wider drama of migration that will dominate politics for years ahead.