This introduction argues that understanding the historical specificities underpinning the reception of ‘boat people’ within Europe and Israel is important. Exploring the different labels ascribed to the arrivees—refugees, boat-people, expellees, returnees, migrants—it reveals how these terms reflected individual national asylum systems and histories of migration. It identifies and discusses three themes running through the book. First, the role of geo-politics—notably post-colonial and Cold War dynamics—in driving each country’s response to the UNHCR’s original resettlement programme. Paying particular attention to traditions of welfare provision, humanitarianism and voluntarism, the introduction secondly explores how each country’s political context and history shaped their respective reception and resettlement programmes. Finally it discusses the importance of inserting the ‘boat people’ into histories of national projects of integration, assimilation and multi-culturalism.