Reviews

Aristide Zolberg and Peter Benda (eds) Global Migrants, Global Refugees: Problems and Solutions Oxford: Berghahn, 2001, 368 pp., £47.00/$69.95 h.b. (ISBN 1 57181 169 9), £17.00/$25.00 p.b. (ISBN 1 57181 170 2) This book sets out to debunk the notion of an 'international migration crisis' - the idea that the developed countries of the North are about to be swamped by floods of migrants propelled by impoverishment, violence and chaos in the South. In one sense the book is out-of-date: its genesis lies in the early 1990s, when the end of the Cold War was generating fears of uncontrolled migration. The papers on which the book is based were originally written in 1995-96; it is not clear why the book did not appear until 2001. In another sense the book is timely. The migration panic of the early 1990s had receded towards the end of the decade. But by the beginning of the new millennium, movements were edging up again. And the events of 11 September 2001 drove migration and refugee movements right to the top of the security agenda. Zolberg and Benda's book examines the 'securitization of migration' long before it became fashionable.