Anthropology Review Database
"A powerful book . . . The Land of Open Graves is very appropriately published in the California Series in Public Anthropology and represents just what public or engaged anthropology can and should be. . . . This is a book that all parties should read."
Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books
"Everyone should read this book... De León introduces readers to a world that they likely either do not know or wish they could forget."
New York Times
"[A]nthropologist Jason De León dedicated five years to studying migrants who tried to make the deadly crossing into the United States over the Sonoran Desert, hiking hundreds of miles of the trails himself so that he could better understand the dangers faced by the people he interviewed. His intensive fieldwork made its way into . . . The Land of Open Graves."
Times Literary Supplement
"The Land of Open Graves is hard to put down. Its violent and vivid content draws you into a reality that we should all know about, and the author's interpretation provides a political and theoretical perspective that challenges conventional beliefs about undocumented migration."
Savage Minds
"De Leon’s work on immigration to the Unites States focuses on a central issue in the United States today, and does so with real power."
Migration Studies
"De Leon's text is remarkable in its use of mixed and novel methods, alongside an honest discussion of the reasoning and motivations that inspire his work."
Border Criminologies
"Important and gut-wrenching . . . [De Leon's] engagement with illegal immigration through photography, archeology, forensic science, linguistics, and ethnography is revitalizing in its full encapsulation and acknowledgement of its complexity. . . . I wholly recommend this book."
NACLA Report on the Americas
"The Land of Open Graves is an invaluable book, one full of rich ethnographic accounts of migrants, sharp analysis, and beautiful photographs by Michael Wells (as well as some by the migrants De León encounters). It is a strong indictment of the violence migrants face, particularly of a structural sort, and it calls us to "better understand how our worlds are intertwined and the ethical responsibility we have to one another as human beings." It deserves a broad audience."
The Times Literary Supplement
"The Land of Open Graves is hard to put down. Its violent and vivid content draws you into a reality that we should all know about, and the author's interpretation provides a political and theoretical perspective that challenges conventional beliefs about undocumented migration."
TLS
"The Land of Open Graves is hard to put down. Its violent and vivid content draws you into a reality that we should all know about, and the author's interpretation provides a political and theoretical perspective that challenges conventional beliefs about undocumented migration."
