I have often thought that publishers should make a gentleman's agreement not to issue books with general titles, which turn out to have much more specific contents. The present volume is a prime example: it is not about immigration in general, but about immigration to the USA. The editors define their main aim as being to present and explain the most important primary sources relevant to the subject. This they do in the form of about a dozen discursive chapters, half of them devoted to historical periods of immigration, the other half to specific aspects of the subject as it stands at present, for instance, its relationship to economic policy or to security policy. Each chapter is in two parts, the first an analytical account of the period (or aspect), the second a selection of verbatim extracts from legislative acts, speeches by politicians, legal pleadings and so on. The predominant interest of the book is in the period since 1945, and the text is updated to 2007. There is no statement of the intended readership, but one might guess it to comprise mainly US undergraduate students or general readers.
Spread throughout the main text are about 30 boxes containing definitions of specialised terms important to the field, such as Nativism. Among other supplementary material are a list of the most significant legislation on immigration from the foundation of the USA to the present; an annotated list of about 100 web sites of official and academic organizations concerned with the issue, supplemented by ten blogs (the first time I have noticed such resources appearing in a reference book) and 20 films; a general bibliography of 130 items, mostly recent books (each chapter has also its own specialised bibliography); and an index. There are also some illustrations, tables and graphs.
Even readers not acquainted with the history of the USA would quickly realise how important immigration has been to the country. The authors describe how periods in which immigration was officially encouraged (especially from about 1880 to 1920, half of the US population being thought to descend from people who arrived in this era) alternated with periods when it was thought necessary to discourage it (as in the 1920s when the authorities feared allowing in Communists). Along the way the conscientious reader will encounter many unexpected facets of the subject, such as Benjamin Franklin's worries about the need to assimilate German immigrants in 1751, before America had even become independent. In recent times (from the 1970s on) the chief preoccupation has been immigration – especially the illegal variety – from South and Central America. It is believed that a million illegal immigrants now arrive every year, and of those, only 600,000 are detected and expelled. Politicians have not reached a consensus on how to deal with this problem, and draconian solutions are now being proposed, such as the current erection of a fence along a third of the entire US‐Mexican border. The text is sufficiently up to date to include references to the policies of the leading candidates for the 2008 Presidential elections: in general, the authors declare, Republican candidates denounce illegal immigration, while Democratic candidates try to avoid mentioning it at all. This book fulfils its editors' aim to provide a useful summary of the main trends in the development of an issue of fundamental importance to US history and contemporary politics.
