Race, ethnicity and immigration continue to be controversial and divisive topics in the United States, which perhaps explains why the book under review is in its fourth edition, the three updated versions appearing since 1990. Natives and Strangers is a broad and comprehensive survey of American history with a strong emphasis on the experiences of minority ethnic groups. The text takes us – in less than 300 pages – all the way from the settlement of the English colonies, with their importation of African slaves and their violence directed toward Native Americans, to the multicultural mosaic that is twenty-first century Los Angeles.

The authors choose to organise the book within a loose and wide chronological framework with a number of overlapping themes. Each section deals adequately with the social and economic forces at work in shaping ethnic experiences; whether that involved luring immigrants to the United States, pushing Indians from the land and into federal reservations, or attracting black migrants from the Southern cotton fields to the factories of the North. Oddly, the tone seems to change at around the middle of the twentieth century. Whereas before about 1950, most of the narrative deals with the hardships and discrimination faced by ethnic minorities, after that date the emphasis shifts to one of ethnic groups overcoming barriers to their own recognition and grasping the opportunities open to them. The relentless documenting of misery and suffering for most of the book followed by the upbeat tone of the final three chapters jars a little. The failures of the 1960s civil rights movement are mentioned in passing and the subsequent ethnic balkanisation of the United States is acknowledged but the authors attempt to put a positive spin on this development and suggest it represents a move toward a more equal and pluralistic society. The final chapter of the book – and the only new one added for this edition – is simply a list of new immigrant groups and a chronicling of their different experiences and achievements with apparently little to hold them together. The fact that a unified narrative of U.S. history is missing from the later sections of the book is indicative of the problems faced in contemporary American society, not just in the writing of its history. The final sections do make numerous references to the events of 11 September 2001 but it is not clear to what end.

The book might serve well as an undergraduate introduction to issues of ethnicity and race as it does contain a number of extremely interesting factual nuggets as well as a strong overview of historical developments within the nation. Yet a couple of howling factual errors and typos would also make me wary of assigning the book: the number of dead in the 1919 Chicago race riot for instance is listed as 23 whites and 25 blacks (48 total) whereas the correct figures are 15 white and 23 black (38 total). And surely George W. Bush did not appoint Colin Powell to be Secretary of State in 1901?