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Don't Leave Home: Migration and the Chinese. By WANG GUNGWU. Singapore: Times Academic Press, 2001. vi, 314 pp. $39.00 (paper).
Wang Gungwu begins his new collection of essays with an astounding statistic: the Chinese diaspora is now estimated to be over twenty-five million people. The current total includes those Chinese migrants who left their homeland and settled abroad, as well as their descendants. This figure is significant not only for its size but also because, as Wang notes in the book's preface, China is a country that has lacked a tradition of emigration. In this new volume of essays, Wang, one of the leading scholars of the Chinese diaspora, explores the global migration of Chinese; their experiences in Southeast Asia, Australasia, other parts of Asia, and North America; and the role of migration in shaping global history in general. The first of a promised four-book collection, Don't Leave Home is mainly comprised of Wang's previously published essays dating from the 1990s that helped reinvigorate and define the field of Chinese migration and diaspora studies. Collected in one volume, these essays clearly demonstrate just how great Wang's influence has been on the field.
Some of the most powerful chapters articulate the central role of migration and migration studies in global history. Focusing on the "spatial relationships between...