Tuesday, August 7, 2007

"Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them"

New from Princeton University Press: Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them by Philippe Legrain.

About the book, from the author's website:
Immigration divides our globalising world like no other issue. We are being swamped by bogus asylum-seekers and infiltrated by terrorists, our jobs stolen, our benefit system abused, our way of life destroyed – or so we are told. As dishevelled Africans land on Spanish tourist beaches, Chinese cockle-pickers drown in Morecambe Bay and the death-toll in the past decade on the US-Mexican border rises above 9/11's, Philippe Legrain, author of the critically acclaimed Open World, has written the first book that looks beyond the headlines. Why are ever-rising numbers of people from poor countries arriving in Europe, North America and Australasia? Can we keep them out? Should we even be trying?

Combining compelling first-hand reporting from around the world, incisive socio-economic analysis and a broad understanding of what's at stake politically and culturally, Immigrants is a passionate, but lucid book. In our open world, more people will inevitably move across borders, Legrain says – and we should generally welcome them. They do the jobs we can't or won't do – and their diversity enriches us all. Left and right; free-marketeers and campaigners for global justice; enlightened patriots – all should rally behind the cause of freer migration, because They need Us and We need Them.