The Next Great Migration

The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move

By: Sonia Shah

Narrated by: Sonia Shah

This program is read by the author.

A prize-winning journalist upends our centuries-long assumptions about migration through science, history, and reporting - predicting its lifesaving power in the face of climate change.

The news today is full of stories of dislocated people on the move. Wild species, too, are escaping warming seas and desiccated lands, creeping, swimming, and flying in a mass exodus from their past habitats. News media presents this scrambling of the planet's migration patterns as unprecedented, provoking fears of the spread of disease and conflict and waves of anxiety across the Western world. On both sides of the Atlantic, experts issue alarmed predictions of millions of invading aliens, unstoppable as an advancing tsunami, and countries respond by electing anti-immigration leaders who slam closed borders that were historically porous.

But the science and history of migration in animals, plants, and humans tell a different story. Far from being a disruptive behavior to be quelled at any cost, migration is an ancient and lifesaving response to environmental change, a biological imperative as necessary as breathing. Climate changes triggered the first human migrations out of Africa. Falling sea levels allowed our passage across the Bering Sea. Unhampered by barbed wire, migration allowed our ancestors to people the planet, catapulting us into the highest reaches of the Himalayan mountains and the most remote islands of the Pacific, creating and disseminating the biological, cultural, and social diversity that ecosystems and societies depend upon. In other words, migration is not the crisis - it is the solution.

Conclusively tracking the history of misinformation from the 18th century through today's anti-immigration policies, The Next Great Migration makes the case for a future in which migration is not a source of fear, but of hope.

A Macmillan Audio production

©2020 Sonia Shah (P)2020 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

“Rich with eclectic research and on-the-ground reporting, Sonia Shah's book presents us with a dazzlingly original picture of our relentlessly mobile species. At a moment when migrants face walls of hatred, this is a story threaded with joy and inspiration.” (Naomi Klein, author of On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal)

“A masterful survey of migration in both nature and humanity, countering some long-held misconceptions...a valuable treatise on how humanity can 'reclaim our history of migration' and adopt a more pan-global perspective.” (Publishers Weekly, starred review)

“An incisive examination of migration, which she considers a phenomenon both biological and cultural.... A scientifically sophisticated, well-considered contribution to the literature of movement and environmental change.” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review)

WOW I learned so much

Great book, it's a history lesson, incredible wonder of plants and animals

We've always been on the move and she teaches you, step by step

Great book for our Relevant Readers bookclub

Thank you for your wonderful book

Challenging what we know and how we know it.

Great journey of exploring how all plants and animals move around the world over time.

BRAVA!!!!

I Knew from the first 5 minutes of listening to this book that i was going to be considerably smarter in 10 hours and 14 minutes. I was not wrong, i am smarter. thank you for challenging our ideas about "us" and "them" and teaching us where such notions come from.
This book is meticulously researched & well-organized. it makes for easy reading & comprehension. I very much enjoyed the authors' narration as well. thank you for this wonderful book- i feel it has opened my eyes- BRAVA. Sincerely, Liz Jardine

Everyone, read this!

I’d recommend this book for anyone caring about this world we live in. We owe it to our children and their children to right the centuries of misinformation and prejudices that have led us to unnecessarily upheaval.

Good History of Xenophobia

Very well written and narrated, but not what I expected. I thought this book would place the history of human migration in the context of wider migratory behaviors of animals. A bit of this comes in the second half, but the bulk of the book is a history of anti-immigrant and xenophobic thought, most of it racist. That doesn't make for hugely enjoyable listening unless you're inclined to believe some of the myths described.