Review by Choice Review
Based primarily on 80 interviews, this book uses the oral history of Gujarati immigrants and organizations in London and New York to examine the reasons for migration in the 20th century. Although the study lacks the depth that research in India and Africa might have provided, its reassessment of migration is sufficiently radical to make it a major contribution to scholarship on the subject. The author eschews the primarily economic push-pull models that "world-systems" advocates have used to explain migration patterns, focusing instead on relational networks as the most important determinants of these trends. In a departure from the recent scholarly emphasis on kinship networks, however, Poros (CUNY) claims that professional networks are equally important in determining who migrates and why. Such conclusions call for reassessment across several disciplines, since for Poros, transnational networks, rather than international economics, provide the most important framework for migration. Perhaps most significant is the author's assertion that by focusing on supply and demand, the immigration policies of the US and UK are failing to assess the true causes of much of the migration to their shores. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. A. M. Wainwright The University of Akron
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
