Volume 1 of The Cambridge History of Global Migrations documents the lives and experiences of everyday people through the lens of human movement and mobility from 1400 to 1800. Focusing on the most important typologies of preindustrial global migrations, this volume reveals how these movements transformed global paths of mobility, the impacts of which we still see in societies today. Case studies include those that arose from the demand for free, forced, and unfree labor, long- and short-distance trade, rural/urban displacement, religious mobility, and the rise of the number of refugees worldwide. With thirty chapters from leading experts in the field, this authoritative volume is an essential and detailed study of how migration shaped the nature of global human interactions before the age of modern globalization.

The narrative around contemporary terrorism and political violence has emphasise its transnational character. There has been a tendency to see this dimension of terrorism as something novel, rendering contemporary terrorist threats as more dangerous than those experienced in the past. The idea of globally networked violent actors is frightening, and understandably excites public anxiety. Yet the overwhelming majority of terrorism has tended to be not only domestic, but local, conducted by individuals in the country where they normally reside, usually striking at targets close to their home. Transnational connections do exist, of course, but rather than being the defining feature of some ‘new’ terrorism, they have been a feature of violent political movements since long before 11 September 2001. Indeed, they arguably date back to the emergence of terrorism itself as some phenomenon discernable from other forms of violent contestation. This chapter has two aims. It will assess the importance of transnational links to radical and violent non-state actors for Irish Republicanism. Further, through an analysis of the Irish case study, it aims to contribute to our understanding of such transnational links more generally.

Chapter 14 returns to Britain in 1814–15, with Jenner hoping that peace would bring new opportunities to advance the vaccination cause. The end of the Napoleonic Wars and the reopening of lines of communication, bringing further reports of vaccination around the world, provides a useful vantage-point to identify key developments in the global story. Although the early history of vaccination is one of the diffusion of know-how and biomatter along the lines of Europe trade and empire, the networks rapidly become more complex and multilateral, with the new prophylaxis constructed on a global stage, not least the management of the practice, its integration in systems of public health and in legislative and other forms of coercion. Above all, it is possible to see vaccination as a quiet revolution, an emancipatory force, the pointy end of increasing state power and a foundation for further breakthroughs in the struggle against disease.