In a series of books, Reece Jones, Professor in the Department of Geography and Environment at the University of Hawaii, has explored the impact of borders on our lives. In his latest book, White Borders, he delves into the history of immigration and race in the United States, and explains the connection between the two. Here, he recommends the best books he’s read on the topic and explains why he’s not optimistic about the future.

Having trouble getting your head around the refugee crisis? New York Times reporter Patrick Kingsley, formerly the Guardian’s migration correspondent, chooses the best books on refugees. He explains his choices to Ziad Ghandour, himself a refugee from Syria.

What are the economic effects of immigration? Economist Ian Goldin, a professor at Oxford University and founding director of the Oxford Martin School, recommends books and explains.

Beleaguered ‘citizens of nowhere’ will be pleased to know they have their own literary genre. For anyone who has ever wondered where they belong, or why, when you leave your home country, it’s never the same when you return, here are the best five books to read—including some by the greatest authors of the 20th century.

One out of every 122 people in the world today is displaced by conflict. David Miliband, president of the IRC, chooses five books to help us think constructively about refugees and the causes of the current crisis.

To understand what makes integration fail or succeed we need to know why migrants moved in the first place, says Shahram Khosravi, Professor of Social Anthropology at Stockholm University and author of Young and Defiant in Tehran and ‘Illegal’ Traveller.

How did the concept of United States immigration being a ‘melting pot’ of diverse nationalities come to be? In this interview, Stanford historian Ana Raquel Minian explores America’s complex, highly racialized history of immigration and recommends five of the books on the subject that have most influenced her.

American society and American history marginalized migrant workers for too long. New scholarship shows that migrant workers were central to America’s cultural and economic development. Mireya Loza, a historian at Georgetown University and author of Defiant Braceros, talks us through the best books about migrant workers—and why their stories are integral to understanding the past and present of United States.  

National borders are fertile territory for fiction, says literature professor Claudia Sadowski-Smith. She recommends five novels about migration and border crossings.

The anthropologist tells us about books that give voice to low-wage migrant labourers and explains the mutual dependence of slums and “urban glamour zones”

Rather than an exciting concept that opens up societies to new ideas and cultures, the idea of ‘multiculturalism’ is currently out of favour, at least in popular political discourse. Yet, according to sociologist Tariq Modood, founding Director of the Bristol University Research Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship, many of the problems we face today are crying out for multicultural solutions. He recommends the best books on multiculturalism, beginning with its development as a political theory in 1980s Canada.

Managing immigration has become a key political question of our times. The author of The British Dream tells us about the British experience, and what helps multiculturalism succeed or fail.

The Islamic scholar and commentator tells us what it means to be Muslim and Western, and explains how mainstream views get trapped between noisy extremism and a sensation-seeking media