Paul Spickard's latest book sets out to explore the history of American immigration in a new way: placing race and colonialism at the heart of it. He goes beyond what he calls the “immigrant assimilation paradigm” to see assimilation not simply as a process of “Anglo-conformity” on the part of immigrants, but one where immigrants have assimilated into different ethnic groups that have emerged over time. Spickard moves away from the traditional interpretation of immigration that tended to see English immigrants as somehow native to America, and to regard all other immigrants (namely white Europeans) as “immigrants” that had to assimilate. Assimilation, we are told, was not simple; it was part of a complex re-formation of group identities.

The book charts, then, the course of immigration from the early European settlers to the present day. The use of the phrase “almost all aliens” in the title is suggestive, for those who are not outsiders are, of course, the Native Americans. As Spickard makes clear, “This Native American story is part of the story of American immigration, because immigration has consequences, and not just for the immigrants” (143). This particular feature of the book makes the work stand out. A further highlight is the dispelling of the age-old interpretative framework of old/new immigration, demonstrated, effectively, through statistical analysis. The book reveals that the “old” immigrants continued to arrive well into the twentieth century, and beyond. However, it is the “new” immigrants that have arrived post-1965 that form, rightly, a major part of the book. As Spickard argues, the concern of many Americans over immigration in the post-1965 period has not been over numbers, but over the race of these “new” immigrants.

Spickard's discussion of “racial hierarchies,” which emerged as a result of European interaction with nonwhites, is also thought-provoking. The hierarchy consisted of whites of English descent above other white Europeans, and all whites above nonwhites. Whilst such a model is useful, the reality was not so straightforward. Spickard hints that this was particularly the case over the question of mixed-race relationships. This analysis, though, could have been pushed more, particularly in his discussion of African Americans in the Jim Crow era. The decision of some mixed-race people to “pass” as white, to step across the “colour-line” and upset this racial hierarchy, is an idea that could have been explored further.

Moreover, with a book of this size and detail, some form of bibliography would have helped the reader, for the endnotes constitute nearly 150 pages. A further point that needs mentioning is the use, at times, of rather overfamiliar language. For example, Spickard slips on occasion into using the word “us” when referring to America. But this is a minor point. It is clear that a book such as this will be required reading for any university course on immigration history. Spickard has produced a masterly work that leaves the reader in no doubt that immigration is a central feature of American history and identity, and it is a complex identity at that.