Migration Histories

Abstract

It is impossible to cover the history of global migrations in one chapter. The literature on global migration has increased rapidly since the 1980s. This increase is more-or-less in line with the increase in publications on migration control and migration management. The number of publications about global migration history is much less. This chapter will and cannot not cover the global migrations in the past 2000 years, but rather it will look critically at data collections, present biases in migration history, and will give a helicopter view of major migrations.