There are several ways of writing history. The most common way is to follow the chronological order when writing about a nation or an individual. For the countries under discussion, the starting date is picked, and the story is told, going from one notable event to the next. For Pakistan, the starting date is not necessarily 1947, when the country won independence, or 1906, when British India's large Muslim population formed the All-India Muslim League to focus on protecting the rights of the followers of their distinct faith.

The choice of the starting date can be controversial. For the United States, should 1776 be the beginning of the story when a group of leaders issued what came to be called the Declaration of Independence? With that as the starting date, the country is getting ready to celebrate its 250th birthday in 2026. Or, as some historians have argued, the starting date should be much earlier, when the first boat carrying slaves arrived from Africa to the eastern shores of America. The argument for choosing the earlier date is that the country's black population was to play a critical role in developing it.

For some historians, migration becomes the dominant feature of the entire history of a nation. For Alexander Gershenkron, who taught me economic history at Harvard University, migration — or generally the large-scale movement of people — is the defining feature of the lives of nations. He was a Russian Jew who had first left his country and gone to France, from where he moved to the........

© The Express Tribune