The Uniqueness of London

There are many ways to write immigration history in Britain but we can identify the following. First, a small number of general histories of migration to the country. Second, studies of particular groups who have settled in Britain, an approach which has a long tradition dating back to the nineteenth century in the case of Jewish and Irish communities in particular but which has also led to similar studies of a variety of other more recently arrived groups from the second half of the twentieth century. These two approaches have distinct aims in mind. The general histories, written against the background of migration taking place at the time of their writing and, perhaps more importantly, the widespread newspaper-led hostility which migrants face, wish to demonstrate that Britain has a long tradition of migration stretching back centuries and even millennia. The histories of particular migrant groups also emerge against a background of hostility but have the key aim of proving that the particular group under consideration, usually written by somebody with the same ethnic identity as the group about which they write, has not only made a significant contribution to the history of Great Britain but also has a long history of settlement in the country...