On 15 September 1896, nearly a thousand people prepared to board a steamer in the port of Montreal, headed for Santos, Brazil, and on to the coffee planta- tions of São Paulo, while a crowd of a few thousand pleaded with them to stay. Families were split as wives boarded without husbands, or husbands with- out wives. While many prospective migrants were convinced to get off the boat, close to five hundred people departed for South America. Ultimately the experience was a disaster. Some died on board the ship, others in Brazil; yet others became indigent labourers on coffee plantations or beggars on the streets of São Paulo. The vast majority returned to Canada, many of them helped back by British consular representatives. While the story was widely covered in the international press at the time, a century later it is virtually un- known. In Mad Flight? John Zucchi consults a range of primary and second- ary sources, including archival material in Canada, Brazil, France, and the United Kingdom, to recreate the stories of the migrants and open up an impor- tant research question: why do some people migrate on impulse and begin a journey that will almost inevitably end up in failure? Historical studies on migration most often account for successful outcomes but rarely consider why some immigrant experiences are destined to fail. Mad Flight? uncovers the history of an otherwise little-known episode of Canadian migration to Brazil and provokes further discussion and debate. John Zucchi is professor in the Department of History and Classical Studies at McGill University. Until the arrival of the Russian Empire in the early nineteenth century, the South Caucasus was traditionally contested by two Muslim empires, the Ottomans and the Persians. Over the following two centuries, Orthodox Christian Russia – and later the officially atheist Soviet Union – expanded into the densely populated Muslim towns and villages and began a long process of resettlement, deportation, and interventionist population management in an attempt to incorporate the region into its own lands and culture. Exploring the policies and implementations of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, Resettling the Borderlands investigates the nexus between impe- rial practices, foreign policy, religion, and ethnic conflicts. Taking a compara- tive approach, Farid Shafiyev looks at the most active phases of resettlement, when the state imported and relocated waves of German, Russian sectarian, and Armenian settlers into the South Caucasus and deported thousands of others. He also offers insights on the complexities of empire-building and managing space and people in the Muslim borderlands to reveal the impact of demographic changes on the Armenian–Azerbaijani conflict. Combining in-depth and original analysis of archival material with a clear and accessible narrative, Resettling the Borderlands provides a new interpreta- tion of the colonial policies, ideologies, and strategic visions in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. Farid Shafiyev holds a PhD from Carleton University and an mpa from Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He lives in Prague. 2 8 M Q U P S P R I N G 2 0 1 8 S P E C I F I C AT I O N S May 2018 978-0-7735-5353-8 $44.95A CDN, $44.95A US, £37.00 paper 978-0-7735-5352-1 $110.00S CDN, $110.00S US, £91.00 cloth 6 x 9 376pp 4 maps, 4 tables eBook available S P E C I F I C AT I O N S McGill-Queen’s Studies in Ethnic History May 2018 978-0-7735-5359-0 $29.95A CDN, $29.95A US, £24.99 paper 978-0-7735-5358-3 $110.00S CDN, $110.00S US, £91.00 cloth 6 x 9 184pp 9 photos, 3 tables, 1 map eBook available Mad Flight? The Quebec Emigration to the Coffee Plantations of Brazil john zucchi How migrants from Quebec ended up stranded on São Paulo’s coffee plantations in the 1890s. E U R O P E A N H I S T O R Y • S L AV I C S T U D I E S L AT I N A M E R I C A N H I S T O R Y • Q U E B E C S T U D I E S Resettling the Borderlands State Relocations and Ethnic Conflict in the South Caucasus farid shafiyev A study of Imperial Russian and Soviet resettle- ment policies in the South Caucasus and their impact on the ethnic conflict.