During the past decade, Syria’s displacement crisis has made the Middle East one of the world’s foremost refugee-hosting regions. The measures to prevent refugees and migrants from leaving the region, and returning those who do, has made the region a zone of containment where millions remain displaced. The volume explores responses to mass migration and traces the genealogy of humanitarian containment from the Ottoman Empire and the emergence of the first refugee camps to the present-day displacement ‘crises’ and the re-bordering of Europe.

"An Army of skeletons appeared before our eyes naked, starved, sick and discouraged."Gouverneur Morris recorded these words in his report to the Continental Congress after a visit to the Continental Army encampment at Valley Forge. Sent as part of a fact-finding mission, Morris and his fellow congressmen arrived to conditions far worse than they had initially expected.After a campaigning season that saw the defeat at Brandywine, the loss of Philadelphia, the capital of the rebellious British North American colonies, and the reversal at Germantown, George Washington and his harried army marched into Valley Forge on December 19, 1777.What transpired in the next six months prior to the departure from the winter cantonment on June 19, 1778 was truly remarkable. The stoic Virginian, George Washington solidified his hold on the army and endured political intrigue, the quartermaster department was revived with new leadership from a former Rhode Island Quaker, and a German baron trained the army in the rudiments of being a soldier and military maneuvers.Valley Forge conjures up images of cold, desperation, and starvation. Yet Valley Forge also became the winter of transformation and improvement that set the Continental Army on the path to military victory and the fledgling nation on the path to independence.In The Winter that Won the War: The Winter Encampment at Valley Forge, 1777-1778, historian Phillip S. Greenwalt takes the reader on campaign in the year 1777 and through the winter encampment, detailing the various changes that took place within Valley Forge that ultimately led to the success of the American cause. Walk with the author through 1777 and into 1778 and see how these months truly were the winter that won the war.

Putnam State Park, Connecticut's first state park, was the site of Revolutionary War general Israel Putnam's last command. In the winter of 1778-79, three thousand troops of the Continental army built and lived in "the city," a winter encampment in the valleys of northern Redding. Historian Daniel Cruson describes in fascinating archaeological detail the construction of the camp and the soldiers' daily struggle to survive. Mutiny, execution, skirmishes and the heroism of Putnam himself are revealed in this compelling history. The story of Putnam State Park doesn't end when Continental troops marched out to engage the British; Cruson takes readers from the creation of the park itself to the present day.

Following the Drum tells the story of the forgotten women who spent the winter of 1777-78 with the Continental Army at Valley Forge.

George Washington and his Continental Army braving the frigid winter at Valley Forge form an iconic image in the popular history of the American Revolution. Such winter camps, Steven Elliott tells us in Surviving the Winters, were also a critical factor in the waging and winning of the War of Independence. Exploring the inner workings of the Continental Army through the prism of its encampments, this book is the first to show how camp construction and administration played a crucial role in Patriot strategy during the war. As Elliott reminds us, Washington’s troops spent only a few days a year in combat. The rest of the time, especially in the winter months, they were engaged in a different sort of battle—against the elements, unfriendly terrain, disease, and hunger. Victory in that more sustained struggle depended on a mastery of camp construction, logistics, and health and hygiene—the components that Elliott considers in his environmental, administrative, and operational investigation of the winter encampments at Middlebrook, Morristown, West Point, New Windsor, and Valley Forge. Beyond the encampments’ basic function of sheltering soldiers, his study reveals their importance as a key component of Washington’s Fabian strategy: stationed on secure, mountainous terrain close to New York, the camps allowed the Continental commander-in-chief to monitor the enemy but avoid direct engagement, thus neutralizing a numerically superior opponent while husbanding his own strength. Documenting the growth of Washington and his subordinates as military administrators, Surviving the Winters offers a telling new perspective on the commander’s generalship during the Revolutionary War. At the same time, the book demonstrates that these winter encampments stand alongside more famous battlefields as sites where American independence was won.

This volume presents recent archaeological and ethnohistorical research on the encampments, trails, and support structures of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. These sites illuminate the daily lives of soldiers, officers, and camp followers away from the more well-known military campaigns and battles. The research featured here includes previously unpublished findings from the winter encampments at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, as well as work from sites in Redding, Connecticut, and Morristown, New Jersey. Topics range from excavations of a special dining cabin constructed for General George Washington to ballistic analysis of a target range established by General von Steuben. Contributors use experimental archaeology to learn how soldiers constructed their log hut quarters, and they reconstruct Rochambeau's marching route through Connecticut on his way to help Washington defeat the British at Yorktown. They also describe the underrecognized roles of African descendants, Native peoples, and women who lived and worked at the camps. Showing how archaeology can contribute insights into the American Revolution beyond what historical records convey, this volume calls for protection of and further research into non-conflict sites that were crucial to this formative struggle in the history of the United States. Contributors: Cosimo Sgarlata - Joseph Balicki - Joseph R. Blondino - Douglas Campana - Wade P. Catts - Daniel Cruson - Mathew Grubel - Mary Harper - Diane Hassan - David G. Orr - Julia Steele - Laurie Weinstein

Official figures classify some fifty million of the world’s people as 'victims of forced displacement'. Refugees, asylum seekers, disaster victims, the internally displaced and the temporarily tolerated - categories of the excluded proliferate, but many more are left out of count. In the face of this tragedy, humanitarian action increasingly seems the only possible response. On the ground, however, the 'facilities' put in place are more reminiscent of the logic of totalitarianism. In a situation of permanent catastrophe and endless emergency, 'undesirables' are kept apart and out of sight, while the care dispensed is designed to control, filter and confine. How should we interpret the disturbing symbiosis between the hand that cares and the hand that strikes? After seven years of study in the refugee camps, Michel Agier reveals their 'disquieting ambiguity' and stresses the imperative need to take into account forms of improvisation and challenge that are currently transforming the camps, sometimes making them into towns and heralding the emergence of political subjects. A radical critique of the foundations, contexts, and political effects of humanitarian action.

A look at Westchester County’s place in the American Revolution and Washington’s plan to trick Cornwallis and march to Yorktown. During the summer of 1781, the armies of Generals Washington and Rochambeau were encamped in lower Westchester County at Dobbs Ferry, Ardsley, Hartsdale, Edgemont, and White Plains. It was a time of military deadlock and grim prospects for the allied Americans and French. Washington recognized that a decisive victory was needed, or America would never achieve independence. In August, he marched these soldiers to Virginia to face General Cornwallis and his redcoats. Washington risked all on this march. Its success required secrecy, and he prepared an elaborate deception to convince the British that Manhattan, not Virginia, was the target of the allied armies. Local historian Richard Borkow presents this exciting story of the Westchester encampment and Washington’s great gamble that saved the United States. Praise for George Washington’s Westchester Gamble “Borkow has done a first-rate job of telling the story of the American Revolution in Westchester County and putting dramatic events there in the context of the larger war--especially the decision to march to Yorktown.” —Thomas Fleming, author of The Perils of Peace “Just when it seemed that the subject of the American Revolution had been thoroughly explored, Richard Borkow has given us a fresh look at the war's culminating event—the 1781 march of French and American troops to Virginia.” —Joseph Wheelan, author of Jefferson’s War and Mr. Adams’s Last Crusade

The #1 New York Times bestselling authors of The Heart of Everything That Is return with “a thorough, nuanced, and enthralling account” (The Wall Street Journal) about one of the most inspiring—and underappreciated—chapters in American history: the Continental Army’s six-month transformation in Valley Forge. In December 1777, some 12,000 members of America’s Continental Army stagger into a small Pennsylvania encampment near British-occupied Philadelphia. Their commander in chief, George Washington, is at the lowest ebb of his military career. Yet, somehow, Washington, with a dedicated coterie of advisers, sets out to breathe new life into his military force. Against all odds, they manage to turn a bobtail army of citizen soldiers into a professional fighting force that will change the world forever. Valley Forge is the story of how that metamorphosis occurred. Bestselling authors Bob Drury and Tom Clavin show us how this miracle was accomplished despite thousands of American soldiers succumbing to disease, starvation, and the elements. At the center of it all is George Washington as he fends off pernicious political conspiracies. The Valley Forge winter is his—and the revolution’s—last chance at redemption. And after six months in the camp, Washington fulfills his destiny, leading the Continental Army to a stunning victory in the Battle of Monmouth Court House. Valley Forge is the riveting true story of a nascent United States toppling an empire. Using new and rarely seen contemporaneous documents—and drawing on a cast of iconic characters and remarkable moments that capture the innovation and energy that led to the birth of our nation—Drury and Clavin provide a “gripping, panoramic account” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) of the definitive account of this seminal and previously undervalued moment in the battle for American independence.