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Exceptional People

How Migration Shaped Our World and Will Define Our Future

Ian Goldin, Geoffrey Cameron and Meera Balarajan

Princeton UP, 2011

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Every now and then, a book sheds light on a hot topic in the news. That is what Ian Goldin, Geoffrey Cameron and Meera Balarajan have done for the issue of immigration. The authors offer solid background information to support their recommendations about migration policies. If current news stories make you think that immigration concerns only restrictive borders, higher walls, bigger detention centers, needy asylum seekers, a drain on state resources and the control of incipient terrorism, perhaps that’s because the media do not cover the substantial economic benefits migration delivers to both receiving and sending nations. With a note that the political opinions expressed are those of the authors, getAbstract recommends this illuminating compilation about migrants who bravely traveled to shape the modern world.

Summary

A World of Migrants

The number of migrants worldwide has skyrocketed in the past 25 years, but that trend only mirrors the past. Migration is one of humankind’s most ancient imperatives, tracing back tens of thousands of years, all the way to early human movement out of Africa and across the globe. Migration, which has defined the human race since prehistory, created the modern world.

Migrants have moved to establish better lives for themselves and their children; to attain security and peace; to flee repression, turmoil, war or disaster; and to realize their potential as human beings. Stone Age humans moved constantly from one place to another in search of food. Over time, groups of prehistoric hunter-gatherers left Africa – humankind’s original home – and traveled upward throughout the Arabian Peninsula.

Some 50,000 to 60,000 years ago, after innumerable additional migrations, humans had populated the seacoasts of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. Eventually, they moved into Europe and Asia and, later, throughout the Americas. By about 10,000 years ago, humans had migrated to every continent except Antarctica. The seafaring Polynesians settled throughout the...

About the Authors

Ian Goldin, a professor of globalization and development at the University of Oxford, directs the Oxford Martin School where Geoffrey Cameron is a research associate. Meera Balarajan has worked for the UN, the UK government and an Indian NGO.

Exceptional People

How Migration Shaped Our World and Will Define Our Future

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A World of Migrants

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