II. Braix Drain in Historical Perspective 



Huma]i mobility is a fact of history, and for modern man, particu- 

 larly in free societies, it is a wivy of life. Today's world is one of quick- 

 ening movement, characterized by constantly shifting populations. 

 At a time of technological change and rapid; inexpensive transporta- 

 tion, mobility has tended to become the rule rather than the exception, 

 and to change one's liome or even country is for many persons a com- 

 monplace event. The struggle for success, advancement, and even life it- 

 self is often inextricably woven into the reality of movement, whether 

 in the sometimes frenetic atmosphere of today's Jet Set living and 

 playing on several continents, or in the more sober sphere of the scien- 

 tist responding to the allure of better research surroundings, or of the 

 businessman operating in an enlarged global sphere of national and 

 multinational cor]3orations. 



Migration in History 



Since the beginning of time, man has been on the move, searching 

 for many things — wealth, power, survival, adventure, f reedoin, peace, 

 education, progress. Indeed, history is largely a record of human mi- 

 gration : the exodus of Hebrews from Egypt, the earliest recorded mass 

 migration; the movement of Phoenicians, Greeks, and Etruscans into 

 the Mediterranean basin establishing ancient civilization; the spread- 

 ing influence of the Greeks, and Eomans; the migration of Germanic 

 peoples into the Roman Empire to form a new base for Western Civili- 

 zation ; the world of the 7th-8th century Arabs stretching from south- 

 ern France in the West to the Indus Valley in the East ; the overseas 

 migration of some 60 million Europeans from the Age of Discovery 

 to the eve of AVorld War II. which had the effect of "Europeanizing" 

 the Western and much of the Eastern Hemisphere — all massive move- 

 ments of people that have constituted the historical record of mankind. 



Within recorded history human migrations have transformed na- 

 tions and continents and the racial, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural 

 composition of their inhabitants. They have often sown the seeds of 

 civilization and in many instances proved to be a primary source of 

 human progress, for above all else man is a carrier of knowledge and 

 potentially an instrument of positive and creative change. 



Talent Migration in Ancient Times 



Brain drain is a distinctive and irtextricable part of the human 

 migration process: it connotes the loss of an elite; it means talent 

 migration. Lord Hailsham may have been the first contemporary per- 

 son to bring prominence to the term when he used it some years ago in 

 a statement to the House of Lords complaining about the drain of 

 British brains to the United States. But its origins are rooted in 

 antiquity, specifically around 150 A.D. when Atheneus, an ancient 

 Greek writer, wrote of "the drain of Greek brains to Alexandria." '^^ 



BTS n Dedijer, "Early Migration," In Adams, The Brain Drain, p. 16. 



(1064) 



