ABSTRACT
Migration, undertaken for many reasons, over varying distances and on a range of timescales, is a fundamental feature of human societies today. Migration was also important in the past and, as well as being an interesting phenomenon in its own right, it is also an important diagnostic feature of the social and economic structures of past societies. Inevitably the study of migration is closely linked with demography and the development of more sophisticated approaches to the study of historical migration has been in part the result of important developments in historical demography in Britain, Western Europe and North America. The nature of the sources and the information that they contain determine the kinds of question which can be legitimately posed, the framework of analysis which can be used, and the kinds of result obtained. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
