Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Palgrave Macmillan

Mobility, Migration and Transport

Historical Perspectives

  • Book
  • © 2017

Overview

Authors:
  1. Colin G. Pooley

    1. Lancaster Environment Centre , Lancaster University, Lancaster, United Kingdom

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • Examines the intersection of the fields of mobility, transport and migration
  • Employs a series of lenses to develop our understanding of movement in the past
  • Emphasises the links between transport infrastructure, mobility expectations and social disadvantage

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Migration History (PSMH)

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this book

Log in via an institution
eBook USD 44.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 59.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 59.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

Licence this eBook for your library

Institutional subscriptions

Table of contents (7 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-ix
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Mobility and History: Framing the Argument

    • Colin G. Pooley
    Pages 1-20

  3. Migration and Mobility Through the Lens of History

    • Colin G Pooley
    Pages 21-50

  4. History Through the Lens of Mobilities Studies

    • Colin G Pooley
    Pages 51-77

  5. Mobility in History Through the Lens of Transport

    • Colin G. Pooley
    Pages 79-102

  6. History and Mobility Through a Microscope

    • Colin G. Pooley
    Pages 103-123

  7. Mobility and History – Towards an Integrated Research and Teaching Agenda

    • Colin G Pooley
    Pages 125-133

  8. Erratum to: Mobility, Migration and Transport: Historical Perspectives

    • Colin G. Pooley
    Pages E1-E1

  9. Back Matter

    Pages 135-138
    Download chapter PDF
Back to top

Keywords

About this book

This book provides an innovative perspective on migration, mobility and transport. Using concepts drawn from migration history, mobilities studies and transport history it makes the case for greater integration of these disciplines. The approach is historical, demonstrating how past processes of travel and population movement have evolved, examining the continuities and changes that have occurred, and arguing that many of the concepts used in mobilities studies today are equally relevant to the past. The three central chapters view past population movements through, respectively, the lenses of migration history, mobilities studies and transport. Two further chapters demonstrate the diversity of mobility experiences and the opportunities and difficulties of applying this approach in teaching and research. Extensive case study material from around the world is used, including personal diaries, which vividly recreate the everyday experiences of past mobilities. Population movement has never been of more importance globally: this book demonstrates how knowledge of past mobility experiences can inform our understanding of the present.

Reviews

“It seems as though we have never been more on the move. Mobility theorists sketch how our lives are constantly remade by the intertwined movements of bodies, things and information circulating at geographical scales from the local to the global. In this incisive book Colin Pooley questions whether this is really anything new. By forging connections between the scholarly fields of migration, mobility and transport history he brilliantly demonstrates that more links us to than separates us from human movement in the past. Pooley thus challenges historians and mobility scholars alike to re-think their research. The social and ecological dilemmas of contemporary mobility can only be understood in a historical context; writing that history requires closer attention to how everyday and residential travel were entangled with each other and the transport systems that made them possible. This book is essential reading for anyone concerned about the future, present and past of human motion.” (Colin Divall, Professor Emeritus of Railway Studies, University of York, UK)

“Human mobility – through migration, everyday movement, transportation, and population shifts – can be understood in a myriad ways. Scholars have framed ‘mobility’ in the past decade or so as a dynamic and critical concept in studies of sociology and geography. Taking these ideas, and by providing a strong synthesis and interpretation, Pooley’s book engages in new and exciting ways with the role of historical readings of mobility, migration and transport. The worlds of people in the past, their mobile lives, are integrated here in a sophisticated, short innovative text, with its underlying argument for an interdisciplinary shift across the way we think, read, teach and research in mobility studies.” (Catharine Coleborne, Professor and Head of School of Humanities and Social Science, University of Newcastle, Australia)

“In this valuable and unique book, Pooley calls attention to key connections linking three closely related yet also independently developing fields of scholarship while also pointing the way forward for new, more interdisciplinary research.” (Donna R. Gabaccia, Professor of History, Department of Historical and Cultural Studies, University of Toronto Scarborough, Canada)

“Pooley has written a revelatory and accessible book that makes the case that students of migration, mobility, and transportation would do well to look to each other in order to deepen their understanding of the human experience – and to do so in historical perspective.  Using a combination of international data, a wide set of references, and individual example, Pooley persuasively argues that these three fields together open the way for rich interdisciplinary research and teaching.” (Leslie Page Moch, Professor Emerita of History, Department of History, Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Lancaster Environment Centre , Lancaster University, Lancaster, United Kingdom

    Colin G. Pooley

About the author

Colin G Pooley is Emeritus Professor of Social and Historical Geography in The Lancaster Environment Centre and the Centre for Mobilities Research (CeMoRe), Lancaster University, UK. 

Bibliographic Information

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Back to top

Search

Navigation