“The Shortest History of Migration” by Ian Goldin
From the earliest human wanderings to the rise of the digital nomad
For hundreds of thousands of years, the ability of Homo sapiens to travel across vast distances and adapt to new environments has been key to their survival as a species. Yet this deep migratory impulse is being tested like never before as governments build ever-stronger walls that adversely impact the lives of migrants and the well-being of our societies.
In The Shortest History of Migration (published by PanMacmillan India), visionary thinker and a migrant himself, Ian Goldin chronicles the movement of peoples that spans every age and continent to arrive at the heart of what truly makes us human. He recounts strange, terrible and uplifting tales of migrants past and present, examining the legacies of empire, slavery and war. Learn about how the first humans originating in Africa populated the world; the exchange of knowledge, food, language and religion through migration, and the exploited migrant populations that built the modern Western world, only to be shut out of it.
Finally, Goldin turns his attention to today’s increasingly fragmented world, bringing together historical evidence and recent data to suggest how we might create a more humane future where we can reap the tremendous benefits that migration has to offer.
Read an extract from the book on Moneycontrol.
Ian Goldin is Professor of Globalisation and Development at the University of Oxford, Fellow at Balliol College, Oxford University, was the founding Director of Oxford University’s Oxford Martin School, and leads its research programmes on Technological and Economic Change, Future of Work and Future of Development.
He has an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a MA and Doctorate from the University of Oxford.
From 1996 to 2001, he was chief executive and managing director of the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) and at that time also served as an adviser to President Nelson Mandela.
From 2001 to 2006 Ian was Vice President of the World Bank and the Group’s Director of Policy and Special Representative at the United Nations. Previously, Ian served as Principal Economist at the EBRD and the Director of Programmes at the OECD Development Centre.
He has been knighted by the French Government and received numerous awards. He has published over 60 journal articles and 23 books. His most recent is Rescue: From Global Crisis to a Better World. His previous books include Terra Incognita: 100 Maps to Survive the Next 100 Years, Age of Discovery: Navigating the Storms of Our Second Renaissance and The Butterfly Defect: Why Globalization Creates Systemic Risks and What to Do, in which he predicted that a pandemic was the most likely cause of the next financial crisis. Other books include: Development: A Very Short Introduction; and Is the Planet Full? He has authored and presented three BBC Documentary Series After The Crash; Will AI Kill Development? and The Pandemic that Changed the World. He has provided advisory services to the IMF, UN, EU, OECD and has served as a non-executive Director on six globally listed companies. Ian is an acclaimed speaker at TED, Google Zeitgeist, WEF and other meetings and is Chair of the core-econ.org initiative to transform economics.
5 Sept 2025
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