Free Movement in Postwar Europe: Exploring a Multivalent Concept. Introduction

The progressive elevation of ideologies and discourses of free movement constitutes a vital narrative of modern European history. This introduction offers a brief genealogy of free movement in European thought and politics in modern liberalism since the late eighteenth century and outlines the actors, spaces and conflicts of free movement in postwar Europe. Furthermore, it offers a discussion of the place of free movement in recent historiography.