This book is about failed marriages and how migration played a role in their failure. It is a translation of a 2019 book titled Lazos rotos: La inmigración, el matrimonio y las emociones en la Argentina entre los siglos XIX y XX. Narrower than its English title suggests, the book focuses specifically on cases of marital conflict that found their way into the judicial record, including bigamy, domestic abuse, murder, and adultery (real or imagined). Migrating might not lead to a greater proportion of failed relationships (and their related crimes), but as María Bjerg shows, it added unique pressures, ones that sedentary people did not have. The book draws from about 25 court cases from the city and province of Buenos Aires between 1880 and 1905 as well as newspaper accounts of the plaintiffs, defendants, and victims. Migration is central to all these cases. Strains brought by a...

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