Reflections on the Revolution in Europe
Immigration, Islam and the West
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- £6.99
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- £6.99
Publisher Description
Why has Europe's half-century of mass immigration failed to produce anything resembling the American melting pot? Deadly terrorist attacks and rioting in Muslim neighbourhoods have now forced Europeans, caught up in a demographic revolution they never expected, to question its success and to confront the limits of their long-held liberal values. By overestimating its need for immigrant labour and underestimating the culture-shaping potential of religion, has Europe trapped itself in a problem to which it has no obvious solution?
Christopher Caldwell has been reporting on the politics and culture of Islam in Europe for over a decade. In his provocative and unflinching book Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, he reveals the anger of natives and newcomers alike. He describes asylum policies that have served illegal immigrants better than refugees. He exposes the strange interaction of welfare states and Third World traditions, the anti-Americanism that brings natives and newcomers together, and the arguments over women and sex that drive them apart. And he examines the dangerous tendency of politicians to defuse tensions surrounding Islam by curtailing the rights of all.
Based on extensive reporting and offering trenchant analysis, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe is destined to become the classic work on how Muslim immigration permanently reshaped the West.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Caldwell frames the issue of Muslim immigration to Europe as a question of "whether you can have the same Europe with different people." The author, a columnist for the Financial Times and a senior editor at the Weekly Standard, answers this question unequivocally in the negative. He offers a brief demographic analysis of the potential impact of Muslim immigration estimating that between 20% and 32% of the populations of most European countries will be foreign-born by the middle of the century and traces the origins of this mass immigration to a postwar labor crisis. He considers the social, political and cultural implications of this sea change, from the banlieue riots and the ban on the veil in French public schools to terrorism across Europe and the question of Turkey's accession to the E.U. Caldwell sees immigration as a particular problem for Europe because he believes Muslim immigrants retain a Muslim identity, which he defines monolithically and unsympathetically, rather than assimilating to their new homelands. This thorough, big-thinking book, which tackles its controversial subject with a conviction that is alternately powerful and narrow-minded, will likely challenge some readers while alienating others.
