Why did 60 million people leave Europe for overseas destinations in the hundred years after the Napoleonic Wars? What were the social and economic causes and effects of this mass migration? Why did some people emigrate and not others, and why did so many emigrants return to Europe? This short comprehensive survey answers these and other questions regarding emigration from different parts of Europe in the years between 1815 and 1930. Written specifically for undergraduate students, it reviews the current literature in several European languages, summarises both economic and demographic theories, and analyses the relation between economic change in Europe and the emigration rate, as well as discussing the economic effects of immigration on the receiving countries and the social experiences or the immigrants.

The issues around settlement, belonging, and poor relief have for too long been understood largely from the perspective of England and Wales. This volume offers a pan-European survey that encompasses Switzerland, Prussia, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Britain. It explores how the conception of belonging changed over time and space from the 1500s onwards, how communities dealt with the welfare expectations of an increasingly mobile population that migrated both within and between states, the welfare rights that were attached to those who “belonged,” and how ordinary people secured access to welfare resources. What emerged was a sophisticated European settlement system, which on the one hand structured itself to limit the claims of the poor, and yet on the other was peculiarly sensitive to their demands and negotiations.