A broad-ranging history of defectors from the Communist world to
the West and how their Cold War treatment shaped present-day
restrictions on cross-border movement. Defectors fleeing the Soviet
Union seized the world's attention during the Cold War. Their
stories were given sensational news coverage and dramatized in spy
novels and films. Upon reaching the West, they were entitled to
special benefits, including financial assistance and permanent
residency. In contrast to other migrants, defectors were pursued by
the states they left even as they were eagerly sought by the United
States and its allies. Taking part in a risky game that played out
across the globe, defectors sought to transcend the limitations of
the Cold War world. Defectors follows their treacherous journeys
and looks at how their unauthorized flight via land, sea, and air
gave shape to a globalized world. It charts a global struggle over
defectors that unfolded among rival intelligence agencies operating
in the shadows of an occupied Europe, in the forbidden border zones
of the USSR, in the disputed straits of the South China Sea, on a
hijacked plane 10,000 feet in the air, and around the walls of
Soviet embassies. What it reveals is a Cold War world whose borders
were far less stable than the notion of an "Iron Curtain" suggests.
Surprisingly, the competition for defectors paved the way for
collusion between the superpowers, who found common cause in
regulating the spaces through which defectors moved. Disputes over
defectors mapped out the contours of modern state sovereignty, and
defection's ideological framework hardened borders by reinforcing
the view that asylum should only be granted to migrants with clear
political claims. Although defection all but disappeared after the
Cold War, this innovative work shows how it shaped the governance
of global borders and helped forge an international refugee system
whose legacy and limitations remain with us to this day.
General
Imprint: |
Oxford UniversityPress
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
October 2023 |
Authors: |
Erik R. Scott
(Associate Professor of History)
|
Dimensions: |
235 x 156mm (L x W) |
Format: |
Hardcover - Cloth over boards
|
Pages: |
336 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-19-754687-1 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
0-19-754687-0 |
Barcode: |
9780197546871 |
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