I read a glowing January 30th review of this book in The Economist where the author once worked, and decided to read it, although I was concerned that I am reading too many books that simply reinforce the world views I already have, and the title alone makes it clear that it is not about the risk to locals from large numbers of migrants. Such reinforcement of views already adopted is a major problem in an increasingly polarized world, and I sometimes deliberately seek out reading material from very different viewpoints to counterbalance the danger of occupying a “thought silo”. I even have the billionaire libertarian Charles Koch’s Believe In People on my ‘to read’ list although I will probably disagree with everything in it, as I did on reading George Will’s The Conservative Sensibility.
Filled with thousands of data points to the point of overload, much of it derived from public polling of citizens around the world, and with blue sky speculations about future possibilities, this analysis completely demolishes many of the xenophobic nationalists’ myths about immigration, emigration, refugees, and asylum seekers and movement of people across arbitrary borders for whatever reason. The net effect of accepting more in western countries is undoubtedly positive whether measured in economic, cultural, or demographic parameters. Eight chapters outline the dividends from immigration; conveniently, but artificially, they all starting with the letter D: Dynamism, Diploma, Deftness, Diversity, Drudgery, Demographic, Debt, and Development, with a lot of redundancy, and examples of emigrants who have had a positive impact on communities. Canada comes in for considerable praise for its treatment of immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, compared to the U.S., the European Union, and Great Britain.
The British author has worked as an advisor to the president of the European Commission, the London School of Economics, the World Trade Organization, and the international think tank, The Open Political Economy Network. He has written other books about migration, that I have not read. His observations and data are hard to argue with, and are backed up by 44 pages of notes and references to source materials and a 22 page index, although he may have been selective in choosing his source materials to mesh with his preformed opinions.
Unfortunately, the writing style is, preachy, bordering on pompous, repetitive and absolutely humourless. The only memorable quote I found is “The saying ‘Two heads are better than one’ is true only if the two heads think differently.” The more common less interesting observations often express truisms that hardly need stating such as “Language skills tend to improve over time.”
While I absolutely agree with the central thesis of this book, and hope others will as well, and it is very informative, I fear that most readers will find it useful mainly as a sedative.
The Passionate Reader 