Migrations and Cultures: A World View by Thomas Sowell

From the Publisher

Most commentators look at the issue of immigration from the viewpoint of immediate politics. In doing so, they focus on only a piece of the issue and lose touch with the larger picture. Now Thomas Sowell offers a sweeping historical and global look at a large number of migrations over a long period of time.Migrations and Cultures: shows the persistence of cultural traits, in particular racial and ethnic groups, and the role these groups’ relocations play in redistributing skills, knowledge, and other forms of “human capital.” answers the question: What are the effects of disseminating the patterns of the particular set of skills, attitudes, and lifestyles each ethnic group has carried forth—both for the immigrants and for the host countries, in social as well as economic terms?

New York Times Book Review

Well reasoned and impressively researched, Migrations and Cultures is...a formidable achievement.

Publishers Weekly

Sowell (Race and Culture), senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, takes a sweeping look at major world migrations, his aim being to "provide revealing glimpses of the enormous role of cultural heritages and their far-reaching implications." Focusing on the Germans, Japanese, Italians, Chinese, Jews and Indians (why not the Irish, too?), he traces the migratory pattern of each group and examines how it has affected the countries where its members settled, as well as the effects of migration on the immigrants themselves over time. Interesting insights abound in this study. For instance, the xenophobia of Westerners toward Chinese is equally as strong among China's Asian neighbors; northern Italians in their new homelands asked to be counted separately from their southern compatriots; German Jews in America, while extending charity to their less fortunate Eastern European brethren, kept a social distance from them. Sowell's treatment is so comprehensive and detailed, with a plethora of footnotes on almost every page, that his book will be of particular interest to specialists. (Apr.)

What People Are Saying

Peter Brimelow
"Sowell is one of the wonders of the American intellectual world and this book once again illustrates why."

Product Details

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Table of Contents