Abstract
As a prelude to the following essays on nine cities selected as strategic research sites, this introduction traces, in summary fashion, the linkages between migration and the development of the capitalist world economy, including, the rise of cities and their development. The history of migration during these five centuries encompasses the movement of European settlers to the new colonies, followed by three centuries of trans-Atlantic slave trade leading in turn, to deliberate labour recruitment in three continents and, eventually, to the contemporary self-driven flows of both labourers and refugees. A final diagram summarizes this evolution and seeks to situate the origin and development of the nine selected cities within it.