Bloody Foreigners - More Books

Bloody Foreigners by Robert Winder

This book examines immigration to Britain since Roman times, highlighting the often immense contribution immigrants have made to what are often thought of as quintessentially British or English things.

Roman, Saxon, Jute and Dane, French Huguenot, Indians, Jews, Irish, Jamaican, the list goes on.

I thought the book was quite balanced - neither a rose tinted spectacles view of immigration nor a sub-BNP misery and woe.  Lucidly written with a balance of detail and broad sweep that gives a sense of understanding of the complexities involved.

More than anything one might conclude that immigration is neither inherently good or bad, but that it has always happened.

The country into which we are born is not something we control, so it is strange that some people make such a fuss about it.

Some of the treatment given to immigrants - or often off spring of recent immigrants has been appalling but generally, better than in most countries.

I wonder it there will be a companion book - because Britain own record of emigration to the rest of the world far exceeds the amount of immigrants who have come to live here.