Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration, and the Future of White Majorities

Whiteshift: the turbulent journey from a world of racially homogeneous white majorities to one of racially hybrid majorities This is the century of whiteshift. As Western societies are becoming increasingly mixed-race, demographic change is transforming politics. Over half of American babies are non-white, and by the end of the century, minorities and those of mixed race are projected to form the majority in the UK and other countries. The early stages of this transformation have led to a populist disruption, tearing a path through the usual politics of left and right. Ethnic transformation will continue, but conservative whites are unlikely to exit quietly; their feelings of alienation are already redrawing political lines and convulsing societies across the West. One of the most crucial challenges of our time is to enable conservatives as well as cosmopolitans to view whiteshift as a positive development. In this groundbreaking book, political scientist Eric Kaufmann examines the evidence to explore ethnic change in North American and Western Europe. Tracing four ways of dealing with this transformation—fight, repress, flight, and join—he charts different scenarios and calls for us to move beyond empty talk about national identity. If we want to avoid more radical political divisions, he argues, we have to open up debate about the future of white majorities. Deeply thought provoking, enriched with illustrative stories, and drawing on detailed and extraordinary survey, demographic, and electoral data, Whiteshift will redefine the way we discuss race in the twenty-first century.

About the Author :
Eric Kaufmann has been researching immigration, religion, and national identity for more than twenty years. A native of Vancouver, British Columbia, he was born in Hong Kong and spent eight years in Tokyo and is now professor of politics at Birkbeck College, University of London. His previous books include Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth? and The Rise and Fall of Anglo-America.

Review :
“Ambitious and provocative . . . [Whiteshift] is likely to make a big splash” “An important new book” “Might [Whiteshift] be the must-read book of the year? . . . informative, fascinating, and relevant on just about every page. . . . On top of all of its other virtues, Whiteshift provides the best intellectual history of the immigration debates I have seen.” “Kaufmann’s explosive claim is that it is not enough to blame a resurgent racism for today’s populist revolts. . . . [He] redefines whiteness as a Western cultural norm, rather than a racial categorization. . . . Kaufmann has done a service in assembling the facts about present inter-ethnic relations in the West.” “Fascinating . . . Kaufmann has done something exceedingly rare among center-right thinkers, which is to write an intelligent, challenging, and in its own way, brave book about race and identity; one not meant to fire up partisans but to make an honest attempt to understand our present dilemmas and propose a solution. . . . Whiteshift is the best diagnosis of populism the right has to offer, and presents compelling arguments that defenders of asymmetric multiculturalism should be prepared to answer.” “Tightly argued . . . empirically careful . . . conceptually precise . . . the book is in many ways a model of scholarship on right-wing populism. . . . Whiteshift’s clarity about the ultimate implications of anti–political correctness politics is, second to the statistical analyses, its core virtue. ”