Volume 2 of the Cambridge History of Global Migrations conceptualizes and organizes major themes and dynamics concerning migration across global and local scales through articles by an international array of experts. This assemblage presents the state of current scholarship and identifies emerging patterns concerning what is one of the most widespread yet conflict-ridden aspects of human behaviors and coexistence. Our coverage addresses both general readers and migration specialists in fields such as history, legal studies, sociology, anthropology, and ethnic studies seeking greater understanding of migration as a key aspect of international relations and global dynamics which are nonetheless significantly shaped by localized conditions and historical contingencies.
Migration, whether imagined as a possibility or as a widespread practice and strategy, suffuses all aspects of human societies, producing complex and interwoven dynamics in fascinating variations that are explored in this volume through a mobility lens. Such an approach understands migration as a human instinct, driven by a host of compulsions including curiosity and quests for adventure alongside essential goals such as family survival, betterment, and cohesion; more habitable and promising environments; opportunities for personal development; political stability; greater egalitarianism and transparency in civic society; and physical security. Migrants almost always operate within border-spanning networks and systems that motivate, enable, and shape their mobilities in many variations and scales as described by the contributions in this volume. Such auspices of migration or brokerages (see the chapter by Wu) reveal the economic and political structures and social relationships requiring mobility of their participants for projects such as imperial management (see Azuma, Lucassen), household economies (Hoerder, Lan, Chang, Cancian), trade (Röshchenthaler, Pilcher), population management (Popova), and labor export and import (Bates, Bryce, Hahamovitch). Political and economic systems also require people to migrate, for example to conduct business relations, as laborers of all kinds, soldiers, and diplomats, even as they seek to limit migration to those persons that serve their purposes. For these reasons, access to legal migration has varied greatly depending on criteria such as race; gender; citizenship and nationality; wealth; cultural capital such as credentialed skills, education, and languages; labor markets and recruitment; political affiliations; religion; human rights designations for refugees and asylum seekers; and international relations (see Atkinson, Laney, Madokoro, FitzGerald, Spiro, Schrover, Oltmer, Albahari). Since the 1870s particularly, the chief barriers for migration studies scholars have been the emergence and naturalization of nation-states as the primary political units and the tremendous authority they have asserted to regulate migration and migrants, pitting their sovereignty over borders and border crossings against the many forms and consequences of migration that characterize the Anthropocene, the geological era characterized by changes to the natural environment ensuing from human activities (see Armiero and Bettini).

Borges, Marcelo J., and Madeline Y. Hsu. The Cambridge History of Global Migrations, v.2: Introduction. In The Cambridge History of Global Migrations, Volume 2. Migrations, 1800–Present, edited by Marcelo J. Borges and Madeline Y. Hsu, 18-41. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2023.

Marcelo Borges is a professor of History at Dickinson College.

For more information on the published version, visit Cambridge University Press's Website. https://www.cambridge.org/us/universitypress/subjects/history/regional-history-after-1500/cambridge-history-global-migrations-volume-2?format=HB

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