The Long Road Home

Ben Shephard read History at Oxford University. He was a producer on the television series The World at War and The Nuclear Age and has made numerous historical and scientific documentaries for the BBC and Channel Four. He is the author of the critically acclaimed A War of Nerves: Soldiers and Psychiatrists 1914-1994 and After Daybreak: The Liberation of Belsen, 1945. He lives in Bristol.

"[A] highly readable and moving book of postwar relief efforts. . . . Shephard raises an important point about the writing of history, which so often dwells on spectacular evil at the expense of pedestrian virtue. . . . With this book, [he] has made a significant contribution to redressing the balance." —The New York Times Book Review

"This is an epic book, beautifully written and astonishingly well-researched." —The Wall Street Journal
"Thoughtful and sobering." —New York Journal of Books
"Masterful...With its thorough and compassionate depiction of the DP era as a whole, The Long Road Home establishes beyond question the period's pivotal importance. . . . [It] should be required reading for anyone who seeks to obtain insight into the capacity of ordinary individuals to confront and, for the most part, overcome the consequences of persecution and dire devastation." —The Washington Post 
"A welcome and much-needed analysis of the refugee crisis in post-war Europe." —The Christian Science Monitor

"Shephard manages to integrate the experiences of major military and political figures with that of ordinary residents of the camps, deftly weaving quotations from his sources into his narrative. . . . A highly readable, solid study." —Richard Breitman, Washington Independent Book Review
"A splendid account of the refugee crisis, moving seamlessly from compelling personal stories to the larger historical and political context, The Long Road Home is remarkably—and refreshingly—candid." —Tulsa World