A penetrating analysis of the history of migration and refugees, from a leading expert in the field. 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 the Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology and Member, The Committee on Global Thought, Columbia University (www.saskiasassen.com).
Her new books are Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages ( Princeton University Press 2008) and A Sociology of Globalization (W.W.Norton 2007). Other recent books are the 3rd. fully updated Cities in a World Economy (Sage 2006), the edited Deciphering the Global (Routledge 2007), and the co-edited Digital Formations: New Architectures for Global Order (Princeton University Press 2005). She has just completed for UNESCO a five-year project on sustainable human settlement with a network of researchers and activists in over 30 countries; it is published as one of the volumes of the Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (Oxford, UK: EOLSS Publishers) [http://www.eolss.net ]. The Global City came out in a new fully updated edition in 2001.
Her books are translated into twentyone languages. She has received several honors and awards, most recently a doctor honoris causa from Delft University and DePaul University. She serves on several editorial boards and is an advisor to several international bodies. She is a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the National Academy of Sciences Panel on Cities, and chaired the Information Technology and International Cooperation Committee of the Social Science Research Council (USA). She has written for The Guardian, The New York Times, Le Monde, the International Herald Tribune, Newsweek International, OpenDemocracy.net, Vanguardia, Clarin, the Financial Times, HuffingtonPost.com, among others.
