This edited volume contains sixteen papers originally presented at the “Middle East and North African Immigrants in Europe” conference held at the Maison Française/St. Anthony's College, Oxford, in May 2002. It is coedited by Richard Lawless, emeritus reader in Middle Eastern studies at the University of Durham and research associate at the Refugee Studies Centre at the University of Oxford, and Ahmed al-Shahi, research fellow at St. Anthony's College, Oxford.

As the introduction states, the conference was organized in response to the increasingly heated debates in Europe on the subject of immigration. Since the attacks of 11 September 2001, a wide array of issues—Islam, terrorism, asylum and immigration policies, integration and assimilation trajectories, immigrant-identity politics and homeland politics, nationalism and multiculturalism, crime and urban decay—has been increasingly presented in a negative relation to Middle Eastern and North African immigrants. In response, this volume sets out to assess many of these same themes. This wide scope covered by the book is commendable, yet at the same time such an approach runs the risk of leaving the reader with research findings, approaches, and topics as scattered and fragmented as their subjects of inquiry, the immigrants. Although this is inevitable with so many contributing authors presenting original research, one cannot but wonder what fruitful exchanges ensued between these researchers at the conference while discussing their findings. Inclusion in the book of some thematic considerations across divergent European contexts would have struck a balance with the more detailed country studies, would have contributed to our comparative understanding of the dynamics of immigration in Europe, and would have drawn attention to the way the issue of migration and immigrants is defined and politicized in the European context.

Somewhat elusive in this book, the European context has since become a rapidly changing field of contention. Since the conference in May 2002, Europe has seen devastating bomb attacks in Madrid (March 2004) and London (July 2005) by homegrown Islamist groups, the assassination in The Netherlands of a leading politician (May 2002) and a critical filmmaker (November 2004) because of their anti-immigrant stance, the coming into force of Germany's new immigration law (January 2005), and weeks of rioting by immigrant youths in French cities (November 2005). These events have changed the social and political landscape in which immigrants find and define themselves.

The volume provides a presentation of European immigration demographics in a long introduction by the coeditors: migration histories of France, Germany, Britain, and the Netherlands; the legal status of migrants in Germany and Britain; political and policy dilemmas of the host state; the introduction, development, and organization of migrant associations in France and the institutionalization of Islam in Italy, Greece, and Austria; social and political responses by host societies; minorities within immigrant groups; transatlantic bonds and identities of asylum seekers; theoretical debates about market-driven multiculturalism and market-driven integration through ethnic entrepreneurship; and a look at human trafficking across Europe.

Some chapters deserve a longer mention. Stefano Allievi, in his chapter on Muslim migration to Italy, traces the development of binary positions from “Islam or Europe” to “Islam and Europe” to a de facto “Islam in Europe.” He suggests an “Islam of Europe” could better be thought of, by Muslims and other Europeans alike, as the Islam of Mecca before the hijra, as this Islamic experience resembles the minority situation of European Muslims much more than an orientation toward the “big,” established Islam of Medina. In a more theoretical essay, Antoine Pécoud discusses the impact of self-employment on integration, an issue that has been hotly debated in the literature on ethnic economies. He suggests that the reasons behind these strongly diverging interpretations may be found in the intermediary nature of trade, an activity that may connect people from different backgrounds but has only a limited impact on their social relations.

In a perceptive analysis of French national identity, Sophie Duchesne reminds us that the way immigrants are received in a country depends not only on legal procedures but on people's perceptions and conceptions of foreigners. Her qualitative research leads her to distinguish two models by which the French perceive citizenship, “citizenship by inheritance” and “citizenship with reservations,” yet she concludes that most French blend together liberal and communitarian elements in ways unanticipated by political theorists. Because the fate of democracy in the face of migration rests on a balance between cohesion and inclusion, she argues both notions of national identity strengthen democracy.

Taking a look at the immigrant side of society in her research on three voluntary associations, Camille Hamidi asks whether migrant voluntary associations are schools of democracy. Surprisingly, her answer is no. What is more, she registers an evaporation of politics within these associations. Romain Garbaye, in a bird's-eye perspective of Britain's immigration experience, highlights the important roles played by local government and the Labour Party, both phenomena unseen in continental Europe. These differences account for a vastly different discourse on “race relations” and multiculturalism in Britain today, as evidenced recently by London's responses to the July 2005 attacks.

Inevitably in an edited volume with a wide scope, several themes are absent or underrepresented. Issues central to the current situation of immigrants but hardly discussed in this volume include the specific cultural background of immigrants; their cultural integration and/or socioeconomic marginalization; travails of the second generation; development of new, European “Islams”; the threat of radicalization and political Islam; and the social and political climate in Europe caused by terrorism and international politics. To the credit of the authors, the essays in this volume do refer to wider academic debates that border on the issues discussed, such as the debate on communitarianism and liberalism or debates about ethnic enclaves and assimilation and about constitutional differences between key European states. Many articles are well suited to be suggested to students as further reading and detailed case studies.