People on the Move ― Attitudes Toward and Perceptions of Migration in Medieval and Modern Europe

While most people in the world are descendants of migrants, not everyone is conscious of the migration patterns of their ancestors. The goals and motives for moving or staying are changing, diverse, and often difficult to specify. As a result of 19th-century residentialist social and political theories, many scholars generally assume that migration is a pattern of behavior that deviates from the norm and requires a specific motive or reason. This study details the variety of changing historical patterns of migrant behavior by examining migration patterns over 1,500 years in Europe and Southeast Asia.

HARALD KLEINSCHMIDT is Professor of History at the University of Tsukuba in Japan. Born at Gottingen, West Germany, he graduated from the University of Gottingen. After teaching at the University of Stuttgart, he transferred to Tsukuba in 1989. He became Extraordinary Professor of European Studies at the University of Tokyo in 2000. He has many publications in both English and German.