A provocative, virtuosic inquiry that reveals how the valorization of migrations past is intimately linked to our exclusion and demonization of migrants today

When and how did migration become a crime? Why have “Greek ideals” remained foundational to the West’s idea of itself? How have our personal migration myths—and nostalgia for times past—shaped our troubling new realities of nationalism and exclusion?

In 2021, Lauren Markham went to Greece to cover the aftermath of a fire that had burned down a refugee camp on Lesbos. Some said the refugees had done it, to destroy what had become their prison. Others suggested the island’s fascists could have done it, or even the government itself, enraged by the burden Greece bore for an overwhelming international problem. Almost immediately—in spite of scant evidence—six young Afghan refugees had been arrested for the crime. As she immersed herself in the reporting, Markham—a U.S. American of Greek heritage who had been working with and writing about migrants for two decades—saw that the story she was reporting was part of a larger tapestry, rooted not only in centuries of global history but also in the myths we tell ourselves about who we are.

A mesmerizing, trailblazing synthesis of reporting, history, memoir, and essay, A Map of Future Ruins helps us see that the stories we tell about migration don’t just explain what happened. They are oracles: they predict the future.