The Age of Mass Migration: What We Can and Can’t Explain
The Age of Mass Migration: What We Can and Can’t Explain
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大规模移民时代：我们能解释什么和不能解释什么
DOI：
10.1057/9780230523128_2
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发表时间：
2001
影响因子：
4.2
通讯作者：
T. Hatton
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
T. Hatton
国际移民一直是千百年来的现实。但正是大规模的移民改变了历史进程，并对社会科学家和历史学家产生了特别的吸引力。尤其是19世纪从欧洲移民到土地丰富、劳动力稀缺的新大陆地区。在1820年后的一个世纪里，约有5500万欧洲人在另一个大陆寻求新生活，这一经历催生了大量文学作品。这些丰富的文献涵盖了关于谁迁徙、何时迁徙、最重要的是为什么迁徙、以什么效果迁徙等基本问题的广泛不同的方法。研究的范围、时期、时间和地点各不相同，但它们越来越多地侧重于特定的移徙者、他们留下的社区和他们进入的社区。这些研究极大地丰富了我们对移徙者的特征及其具体情况的了解，1但大规模移徙背后的经济力量往往退居次要地位，而不是社会、文化甚至政治方面。在微观层面上对特定的、有时是特殊的、群体或社区的研究是以牺牲经济和人口基本面为代价的，这些基本面更匿名，但同样肯定地推动了移民流动。
International migration has been a fact of life throughout the ages. But it is mass migrations that have changed the course of history and that hold a special fascination for social scientists and historians. None more so than the migration from Europe to the land-abundant, labour-scarce regions of the New World during the nineteenth century. In the century after 1820 some 55 million Europeans sought a new life in another continent and this experience has spawned a large literature. This rich literature spans a wide range of different approaches to the fundamental questions of who migrated, when and, above all, why and with what effect. Studies vary in scope, period, time and place, but they have increasingly become focused on specific streams of migrants, the communities they left behind and those they entered. These studies have greatly enriched our understanding of the characteristics of migrants and their specific circumstances.1 But the economic forces underlying mass migration have often taken a back seat to social, cultural and even political aspects. Research at the micro level on the particular, and sometimes the peculiar, group or community has been purchased at the cost of the economic and demographic fundamentals that more anonymously, but just as surely, drove the migrant flow.