From the Balkans to Baghdad (via Baltimore): Labor migration and the routes of empire

While scholars of the Balkans have frequently emphasized the importance of nationalism in the region, labor migration has long been a critical component of economic, social, and cultural life. In this article, Keith Brown examines the connections between two well-documented cases of the risks faced by long-distance migrants from the territory of the modern Republic of Macedonia, separated by a hundred years. Putting each case into its larger context-U.S. industrial expansion in the early 1900s, and U.S. military occupation in the early 2000s-Brown argues that the study of contemporary Macedonia demands attending to imperial and colonial histories that make clear the larger systems of power in which the country and its people have long been suspended.