The Myth of the Muslim Tide
Do Immigrants Threaten the West?
by Doug Saunders
Even among people who would never subscribe to its more dramatic claims, the "Eurabia" movement has popularized a set of seemingly common-sense assumptions about Muslim immigrants to the West: that they are disloyal, that they have a political agenda driven by their faith, that their nhigh reproduction rates will soon make them a majority. These beliefs are poisoning politics and community relations in Europe and North America--and have led to mass murder in Norway. Rarely challenged, these claims have even slipped into the margins of mainstream politics.
Doug Saunders believes it's time to debunk the myth that immigrants from Muslim countries are wildly different and pose a threat to the West. Drawing on voluminous demographic, statistical, scholarly and historical documentation, Saunders examines the real lives and circumstances of Muslim immigrants in the West: their politics, their beliefs, their observances and their degrees of assimilation. In the process he shatters the core claims that have built a murderous ideology and draws haunting historical parallels showing how the same myths stuck to earlier groups, such as Jews and Roman Catholics. His work will become a vital handbook in the culture wars that threaten to dominate North American and European elections and media discussions in 2012 and afterwards, and will provoke considerable debate over the actual nature of our polyglot societies.
Doug Saunders is the former European Bureau Chief of the Globe and Mail and the author of Arrival City: The Final Migration and Our Next World, which won the Donner Prize, and which the Guardian said "may be the best popular book on cities since Jane Jacobs's The Death and Life of Great American Cities half a century ago." He has won four National Newspaper Awards. Saunders lives in Toronto.
A Publishers Weekly Top 10 Politics Book [Fall 2012]
“Doug Saunders may be on his way to becoming the most important journalist in the Canadian mainstream media.... In a cool-headed manner, Saunders dismantles...claims one at a time with a relentless onslaught of facts.... The Myth of the Muslim Tide is a welcome antidote [to Islamophobia] and for that reason alone, it deserves wide readership.”
—The Georgia Straight
“Elegantly written and important.”
—iPolitics
“Convincing…. The Myth of the Muslim Tide should be welcomed in necessary public debates.”
—The Globe and Mail
“Nuanced, informative…. Saunders’ approach is refreshingly levelheaded and fact-based…. An invaluable contribution to the contemporary debate over Muslim immigration and integration into Western communities.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Cogent and timely.”
—Publishers Weekly
