In a modernist interpretation of migration controls, nation states play a major role. This book challenges this interpretation by showing that comprehensive migration checks and permanent border controls appeared much earlier, in early modern dynastic states and empires, and predated nation states by centuries. The 11 contributions in this volume explore the role of early modern and modern dynastic kingdoms and empires in Europe, the Middle East and Eurasia and the evolution of border controls from the 16th to the 20th century. They analyse how these states interacted with other polities, such as emerging nations states in Europe, North America and Australia, and what this means for a broader reconceptualization of mobility in Europe and beyond in the longue duree. Contributors are: Tobias Brinkmann, Vincent Denis, Sinan Dincer, Josef Ehmer, Irial A. Glynn, Sabine Jesner, Olga Katsiardi-Hering, Leo Lucassen, Ikaros Mantouvalos, Leslie Page Moch, Jovan Pesalj, Lewis H. Siegelbaum, Annemarie Steidl, and Megan Williams.

On Many Routes is about the history of human migration. With a focus on the Habsburg Empire, this innovative work presents an integrated and creative study of spatial mobilities: from short to long term, and intranational and inter-European to transatlantic. Migration was not just relegated to city folk, but likewise was the reality for rural dwellers, and we gain a better understanding of how sending and receiving states and shipping companies worked together to regulate migration and shape populations.Bringing historical census data, governmental statistics, and ship manifests into conversation with centuries-old migration patterns of servants, agricultural workers, seasonal laborers, peddlers, and artisans-both male and female-this research argues that Central Europeans have long been mobile, that this mobility has been driven by diverse motivations, and that post-1850 transatlantic migration was an obvious extension of earlier spatial mobility patterns. Demonstrating the complexity of human mobility via an exploration of the links between overseas, continental, and internal migrations, On Many Routes shows that migrations to the United States, to the nearest coalfield, and to the urban capitals are embedded within complicated patterns of movement. There is no good reason to study internal apart from transnational moves, and combining these fields brings ample possibility to make migration research more relevant for the much broader field of social and economic history. This work poses an invaluable resource to the understudied area of Habsburg Empire migration studies, which it relocates within its wider European context and provides a major methodological contribution to the history of human migration more broadly. The ubiquity and functionality of human movement sheds light on the relationship between human nature and society, and challenges simplistic notions of human mobility then and now.

Transnational migration within Europe and overseas has become a central theme of historical research in recent years - not least because of its current topical significance. This volume collects a variety of perspectives on the multiplicity of different patterns of migration and of the relationships that sometime linked local, continental, and transatlantic migrations. Although the attention of migration research has long been focused mainly on the spectacular transatlantic migration of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the majority of migrants moved within Europe. The various authors of this volume use examples selected from different European regions and states to develop specific aspects of the broad spectrum of migration patterns that characterized Europe's population movements from the late eighteenth century to the First World War.