Intercontinental migration has attracted increasing attention in recent years as the ethnic composition of the contemporary world becomes more complex. The overall theme of this collection of 12 essays is the link between European expansion and international migration, with emphasis on the different experiences of Europeans, Africans, and Asians in the Americas. Following an introductory essay by P. C. Emmer are 10 essays on individual immigrant groups, the majority of which address 7 issues: push-pull factors, demography, female migration, transportation, reception, return migration, and capital movement.
Because Europeans clearly have dominated intercontinental migration, individual essays are devoted to the Portuguese, Irish, Swedish, Icelanders, Germans, and Italians. While the Americas were the destination for most immigrants, several essays discuss European emigration to Australia and Canada. Others consider British migrants to India (P. J. Marshall), involuntary emigration from western Africa (W. G. Clarence-Smith), and Chinese and East Indian indentured laborers in the Caribbean (P. C. Emmer). Magnus Mömer’s comprehensive essay on immigration to Latin America is based on several of his earlier publications, including numerous graphs and copious footnotes.
These essays are particularly illuminating because the authors, all European, cover an extended time period, often from the American colonial era to the 1970s—unlike U.S. historians, who often stop with the 1920 immigration laws or World War I. This longer time span allows patterns and continuities in the migration movement to be traced.
In the final chapter, “Divergent Perspectives,” Mörner attempts to summarize comments made at a conference that apparently focused on the book’s topical issues. Because the conference discussions do not appear in this volume, however, Mömer’s points sometimes are difficult to follow. Discussions involved such diverse issues as determining immigrant return rates, appraising the reliability of the much-used push-pull model, and assessing the impact of religion on migration. This chapter also addresses more theoretical issues and offers more analysis and interpretation than previous chapters. Abundant footnotes give the reader a sense of the animated discussions. Conference members clearly applauded the move from strictly historical studies of migration to interdisciplinary studies.
This important volume will interest all scholars of international migration. For Latin Americanists it provides a comparative approach covering migratory movements to North and South America. The chapters on Africans, Chinese, and East Indians will help researchers analyze the diverse ethnic composition of Latin American societies. While only some of the selections include a bibliography, all have extensive footnotes, often with sources not commonly found in standard immigration studies. Certainly migration specialists will continue to debate the theme of this book. One can speculate that 50 years from now, another volume may address the same issue, but with a different emphasis; namely, Asians and Africans replacing Europeans as the most numerous subjects of intercontinental migration.