This book presents a comprehensive review of cross-border labor mobility from the ancient forms of slavery to the present day. The book covers African and Amerindian slaveries, indentured servitude of the Indians and the Chinese, guestworker programs, and contemporary labor migration focusing on the United States, the European Union, and the Gulf Region. The book highlights the economics and politics that condition such trends and patterns by addressing growing anti-immigrant sentiments, as well as restrictive measures in the developed world, and outlines inexorable forces that are likely to propel further expansion of cross-border mobility in the future.

This multidisciplinary volume provides a highly dependable scholarly reference to researchers, students, academics as well as policy makers.

Caf Dowlah, currently a consultant with the Development and Modern Slavery Project of the United Nations, is a former professor of economics with the City University of New York. He has also taught at several other colleges and universities in the United States, Japan and Bangladesh, and has worked with the World Bank, the UNDP, and the World Food Program in advisory and consultancy capacities.

1. Introduction.- 2. Global Human Migration.- 3. Slavery - The Ancient and Medieval Periods.- 4. Slavery in the New World - the Saga of Native Indians.- 5. Slavery in the New World - The Saga of Black Africans.- 6. Indentured Servitude - The Saga of the Indians and the Chinese.- 7. Temporary Cross-Border Mobility Since World War I.- 8. Cross-Border Labor Mobility - Europe.- 9. Cross-Border Labor Mobility - The United States.- 10. Cross-Border Labor Mobility in the Twenty-First Century.- 11. Theoretical Perspectives on Cross-Border Labor Mobility.