Infuriating and incendiary at tines, reasonable and insightful at others this book looks at immingration in europe and criticises its lack of vision while arguing that it involves basic compromise in values. The thesis is that Europe ceases to exist because it can no longer stand for the values it has in the past, its “culture”.

I would dismiss the text except the author’s basic question of how much immigration is good/ok cannot be completely dismissed. The author’s vision of a clash of cultures is more messy and inbalanced, and does not remember similar stories that occured in europe’s past even between neighboring countries.

The value in this text is to draw up a response to some of the policy suggestions the author makes in the last chapters. And ro think deeply as to what aspect of what the author discusses is in effect true for a long term, or a temporary effect.

There are some huge missing holes in the text:
- the fact that european culture has changed all the time and not been so unified as the author argues
- the impact of social media on gathering diverse tribes that drive extrememist positions over practical policy and constructive action
- the idea of responsibility: if not colonial what about climate impact on people
- the economic agenda of globalism mixed with liberalism that has led to the kind of europe we have where human capital movement is at its core
- the impact of technological transformation on inequality of means but open access to information about what life is somewhere else, how to coordinate travel etc…

In any case the book captures a more rational background to the birth of a new backlash against immigration than what we hear on the street. ( )

This is a hard book, relentlessly unforgiving and unflinching. The author spares no one—Europeans and Muslims, politicians and people, and fairly enough--but in doing so leaves you feeling bereft of hope at times.

In the West, to a fair extent, we recognize others rights to cultural self-determination. When we don't, it is usually for things that are considered beyond the pale: stoning rape victims, for example. But we rarely turn this consideration on ourselves. To stand up as German or an American and say that you value your culture and want to preserve it is to invite something on a spectrum that runs from mockery to accusations of racism or white supremacy.

Western Europe, already buckled under its collective guilt over colonialism and the wars of the 20th century, is buckling further under the onslaught of millions of refugees and migrants from substantially different cultures. Having been told these newcomers various would acculturate or leave and neither having turned out to be the case, Europe's natives are despairing, being ignored by their leaders, and, increasingly, giving up hope.

For the last few decades, opinion polls have consistently shown that Europe's peoples wanted less immigration, not more, let alone the flood that has come in recent years. The phrase 'failure of democracy' comes to mind. The marvels here are not that Marine Le Pen and other right-wingers are so popular, but that Macron and Merkel won their elections, that there has been only one (Br)exit.

On top of being ignored, the people who do speak up are roundly condemned as racists--no room for discussion is made, the discussion is shut down before it begins.

Perhaps even more crucial than Europe's politicians' dismissal of their people's wishes is the wild asymmetry between what is asked of the EU and what is asked of others. By all historical standards, turning away hundreds of thousands of refugees is the norm and indeed, little criticism has been aimed at the countries neighboring Syria for being unwilling to accept refugees--despite them being a much closer cultural and religious fit.

(To be fair, as Europe is discovering, intra-migrant violence, which falls almost entirely along religious and ethnic lines, is rampant and far worse than rates of violence against the host peoples--which are significant in and of themselves. So, perhaps Saudi Arabia is to be envied for its wisdom rather than criticized for heartlessness or selfishness.)

It's a dark tunnel and the light at its end the author shows us is so dimmed by improbability one struggles to take much heart from it.

I'm tempted to criticize this book for its rampant hindsighting. But, I won't and here's why. At the beginning of this process, various critics and doomsayers claimed out that Bad Things would happen and that many of these refugees would not really be refugees (many are in fact economic migrants who lie about their origins in order to be granted asylum), that there would be far more than what the governments were projecting, and that some neighborhoods (and indeed entire cities) would be minority European soon. They were derided, called racist or alarmist or simply ignored.

For the most part, they were wrong. These pessimists' projections fell short of the reality that has come to pass.

This is a hard book, but this is a hard problem and there are no easy solutions or answers. ( )

Very informative and a bit frightening to see how many of the behaviors are being replicated in America [ie calling anyone who has concerns about large scale immigration a racist, demonizing an entire side of the political spectrum].

The truth is, to keep the fruits of a heritage, you cannot throw out the foundation of that heritage, because voids want to be filled and will be filled with something. ( )

Good overview of the refugee crisis years & terror wave. Good review of the naiveté of the political class & failed predictions. Falls short in being descriptive over proscriptive; anyone interested enough to pick up the book likely knew most of what's in it already. ( )

This is a well researched argument that the mass immigration into Europe (originally post-colonial, and recently and to a much greater degree, refugees and economic migrants from Islamic countries and Africa) is destructive.

Unfortunately, while the causes are clear (a combination of post-war guilt, especially in Germany, and some weird form of self loathing, combined with exploitation, and on the migrant side, rational economic self interest in both the welfare state and superior economic opportunities), enabled by politicians who were largely acting counter to the wishes and consent of the populace, the solution is unclear -- simply extrapolating from current trends goes nowhere good.

(My takeaway is I'm glad to be in the US where the immigration argument is almost entirely a question of economics, fairness of the queue, and to a lesser degree domestic politics, vs existential risk and fundamentally altering the character of the country. Also, thankful that Eastern Europe exists and has chosen a much more reasonable path.) ( )