A comprehensive historical overview of US immigration policy from the founding of the nation to the present day, A Nation by Design achieves its ambitious aim with clarity and illumination, if not conciseness. Although political scientist Zolberg is stepping outside his own discipline with this impressive contribution to the history of American immigration, he has read widely in and around the field and he does not shy away from challenges to the established historiography. His arguments are generally persuasive and he brings a fresh perspective to the subject, highlighting the international dimension of the immigration question as well as probing the political configurations behind US policy decisions.

A liberal realist by his own account, Zolberg challenges the American national mythology of a laissez-faire open-door policy before the restrictions of the 1920s. Rather, he suggests that immigration policy was always driven by state-building imperatives, imperatives which changed over time, for sure, but which nevertheless demanded regulation and controls on immigration flows from the outset. Driven by the often conflicting need for labour as well as the desire to create and maintain a stable national identity, businessmen, policymakers, interest groups, civil rights campaigners, immigrants and voters all had some input into the make-up of the nation. The various strategic combinations and political alliances made for some very strange bedfellows and surprising policy outcomes, which Zolberg traces in much detail.

Zolberg describes the creation of three different policy regimes over the course of the nation's history. The first generation erected a foundational regime based on positive encouragement of immigration, although some political categories of persons – notably loyalists, and others like Catholics, convicts and paupers – faced state-based restrictions. The US also constructed a new type of citizenship based on consent rather than ancestry – the minimum requirement being whiteness, thereby excluding Indians, blacks and, later, Asians. A new regime was not erected until the 1920s, when the assumption of an open door with exceptions was replaced by an assumption of a closed door unless authorized. Policymakers also opened a side gate for political refugees and asylum-seekers and a swinging back door for migrant workers, largely from Mexico. In 1965 a third regime displaced the racism inherent in the national quota system but the shape and nature of this regime has been constantly challenged ever since. Post-9/11 security concerns have led many Americans to feel keenly the porousness of their borders and the inadequacy of national controls on migration flows in an age of globalization.

A Nation by Design is a dense and informative read, combining detailed political history with contemporary policy assessments and prescriptions.