Volume 2 of The Cambridge History of Global Migrations presents an authoritative overview of the various continuities and changes in migration and globalization from the 1800s to the present day. Despite revolutionary changes in communication technologies, the growing accessibility of long-distance travel, and globalization across major economies, the rise of nation-states empowered immigration regulation and bureaucratic capacities for enforcement that curtailed migration. One major theme worldwide across the post-1800 centuries was the differentiation between “skilled” and “unskilled” workers, often considered through a racialized lens; it emerged as the primary divide between greater rights of immigration and citizenship for the former, and confinement to temporary or unauthorized migrant status for the latter. Through thirty-one chapters, this volume further evaluates the long global history of migration; and it shows that despite the increased disciplinary systems, the primacy of migration remains and continues to shape political, economic, and social landscapes around the world.

In the aftermath of World War I, some politicians, scholars, and lawyers argued that individuals ought to be subjects of international law and bear rights within the international order. With the collapse of the Russian Empire and the onset of revolution, hundreds of thousands of Russians found themselves effectively stateless. Without a state to protect them, these Russians had no identity documents and no effective nationality. The League of Nations and the International Labor Organization worked with various states to create the first refugee passport system. However, unlike today’s system that is based upon someone’s “well-founded fear” of persecution, eligibility for refugee status in the interwar period was based, in part, on one’s former nationality. Even refugees couldn’t escape the tyranny of nationality as the fundamental classification of the individual in the international realm.