We are often told that our world is a world of transnational communities and

diasporas. Western states confronted with massive emigration have long

been trying to keep in touch, and control, the ones who left, and nurtured

networks of information and identities. Having long identified migrants

as immigrants, we do learn a lot through these pages, looking at them as

emigrants. Transporting concepts like diaspora or transnationalism into the

past also lead us to wonder what was exactly new about such things as

transnationalism and the multiplication of diasporas. Is it the world we live

in, or the tools we use to describe it, or a bit of both?

Dealing with different people, different times - from 1820 to 1990 - and

different places, the five historians gathered here challenge some of the

assumptions of contemporary discourses. They use parts of a theoretical

framework designed to identify and name what is new and unprecedented

in our world to shed light on previous migrant experiences and it actually

works.