Provocative insights into the international dynamics of states and markets . . . in [a] sweeping overview of two centuries of European labor migrations.

 -- Aristide R. Zolberg, Director of the International Center for Migration, Ethnicity, and Citizenship, New School University

Guests and Aliens presents a comprehensive analysis of worldwide immigration by one of the world's leading experts on globalization. Putting the current "crisis" of immigration into a historical context for the first time, Sassen suggests that the American experience represents only one phase in a history of global border-crossing. She describes the mass migrations of Italians and Eastern European Jews during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the international dislocations--particularly after the end of World War II--that have engendered the "refugee" concept. Using these examples, Sassen explores the causes of immigration that have resulted in nations' welcoming incomers as "guests" or disparaging them as "aliens," and outlines an "enlightened approach" (Publishers Weekly) to improving US and European immigration policies.

Saskia Sassen is Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago. Her previous books include The Global City, The Mobility of Labor, and Globalization and its Discontents (The New Press).