This work is a very lightly updated translation of a volume that first appeared in German in 2007 and went into a second printing already the next year. Its German and Dutch editors and many of the contributors are part of a movement to place contemporary immigration to Western Europe into a broader context of various forms of migration on the continent, thereby presenting the object lesson that the immigration of recent decades is not something anomalous, but rather a normal human activity that has deep historical roots. The first line of the introduction lays out their manifesto: “Migration is as much part of the human condition as birth, procreation, sickness, and death” (p. xix). In size and outward appearance, this work might be taken for a European version of the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980), but its format is somewhat different. Seventeen articles provide overviews of migration patterns (including overseas emigration up to the ports) since the early modern era in various countries or regional groupings such as Scandinavia or the Baltic Region, authored by some of the leading experts in the field including three of the editors. But nearly three-fourths of the volume consists of 219 shorter essays (by nearly 200 authors) on “Groups,” some as broad as “Ashkenazim in Europe Since the Early Modern Period,” others as narrow as “German Baker-Journeymen in Amsterdam in the Seventeenth Century,” or even “Bosnian Bear Leaders (i.e., trainers) in Western and Central Europe, 1868–1940.” As the latter indicates, some of the selections appear to be rather idiosyncratic, but despite the designation “Encyclopedia,” the editors' goal was not completeness; instead they “tried to focus on especially telling case studies,” as they explain in their introduction (p. xxii). Their definition of migrants is quite broad, encompassing also war brides, mercenaries, and other forms of military migration, temporary contract laborers, itinerant merchants, and return migrants along with more conventional categories. Rounding out each article are a few bibliographic entries (in various languages) that serve as a guide to further reading, and a useful list of cross-references. In contrast to the Harvard Encyclopedia, one thing this work does not set out to be is a statistical reference work. There are some tables, particularly in the broader countries and regions section, but no systematic listing of them. Some articles are supplemented by maps, figures, or photographs, but sparingly. Accessibility is enhanced by two indexes: a relatively broad two-page index of migration types and an exhaustive geographic index of a dozen pages covering everything from continents to individual towns, although economists will regret that there is no indexing of specific economic activities or items of trade. Here the only recourse is to the table of contents.

For readers of this journal, one limitation might be that the Encyclopedia devotes as much attention to forced migrations and refugees of various sorts as it does to labor migrations. But it provides repeated examples that, however neat the theoretical typology separating various types of migration (e.g., Table 1, p. xxix), refugees also bring with them economic consequences, and economically motivated migrants, even temporary ones, also have cultural, political, and sometimes religious impacts on the societies with which they interact. And economic historians will be happy to see that labor migrations have one of the largest index entries (by far the largest when combined with artisan, craftsmen, and journeyman migrations), and there is also sizeable coverage of both merchant and entrepreneurial migrations. Scholars interested in the international transfer of technology or ethnic occupational niches will find dozens of leads: Bohemian glass traders in Central and Western Europe, British technical experts in France, Central European miners and smelters in Scandinavia, Chinese restaurateurs in Germany and the Netherlands, English iron puddlers in Belgium, Flemish or Dutch textile workers in both France and England, German cabinetmakers in Paris, German merchants and industrial entrepreneurs in Russia, German traders in the Netherlands, Hungarian coppersmiths in Western Europe, just to name some of the examples which receive individual treatment.

Occasionally, one could quibble with space allocations. Each of the four largest “Gastarbeiter” nationalities in Germany and adjacent countries—Turkish, Yugoslavian, Italian, and Spanish—is covered in just a single article spanning “Northern, Central, and Western Europe.” Less attention is thus devoted to developments within a given country, although this does present an opportunity to compare and contrast the effectiveness of the migration and integration policies of various destination countries. And it leaves room for a delightful treatment of the ubiquitous, “Italian Ice Cream Makers in Europe Since the Late Nineteenth Century,” with the surprising revelations that most originate from a couple dozen villages in two adjacent valleys of the Dolomites, and usually involve families that have maintained a binational existence into the second, third, and even fourth generations.

For anyone needing a quick grounding in the migration history of a given European country or any of the major groups coming into or moving within Europe, this encyclopedia should be the first place to turn. Save for the occasional “scientific” where one would normally say “scholarly,” the translation is so well done that one forgets it is even a translation.