Migration is at the heart of Asian history. For centuries migrants have tracked the routes and seas of their ancestors - merchants, pilgrims, soldiers and sailors - along the Silk Road and across the Indian Ocean and the China Sea. Over the last 150 years, however, migration within Asia and beyond has been greater than at any other time in history. Sunil S. Amrith's engaging and deeply informative book crosses a vast terrain, from the Middle East to India and China, tracing the history of modern migration. Animated by the voices of Asian migrants, it tells the stories of those forced to flee from war and revolution, and those who left their homes and their families in search of a better life. These stories of Asian diasporas can be joyful or poignant, but they all speak of an engagement with new landscapes and new peoples.

'Migration and Diaspora in Modern Asia is an accessible introduction to a broader field that often posits colonialism as the primary cause of disruption and immobility for Asians in the past … Amrith shows all too effectively how the rise of the modern nation state has hardly resolved, or even stabilized, the status of many of Asia’s sojourners. In many cases it has exacerbated their suffering.'

Source: Reviews in History