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Book Reviews The Geographical Impact of Migration. P. White and R. Woods, Longman, London (1980). pp. 245. ISBN 0 582 48942 3. Price (Paper- back) £ 5.95. This book has as its main object a study of the influence of migration on the social and political structure of human society. The editors provide a useful summary of the nature and causes of movement in the first quarter of the book, which involves them in a general survey of topics such as who migrates, the laws of migration and the systems analysis of movement. An ensuing three page introduction precedes the case studies attempting to give these some cohesion and showing how they fit into the central theme. All the case studies are of equal length, and all bar the first deal with a local issue.The exception is a chapter of masterly compression concerning the historical evolution of migration and the concept of over-population on a world wide basis and in general character is similar to the introductory chapters in the breadth of its scope. The ensuing studies embody the findings of individual pieces of research which illustrate the central theme in a variety of ways. Because they are in essence research papers, much space is taken up with an assessment of the quality of sources and methods of study, so that the emphasis on the influence of migration on the social and political structure of human society promised in the first part of the book is, to a degree lost. Attempts to shed light on the problems and processes operative in the developing world are taken from Africa and South America, remaining examples are confined to England and France. The Eng- lish material is primarily concerned with urban aspects, the French with rural themes. One in each country is basically nineteenth cent- ury historical. All bar one deal with migration which has taken place, but the African study examines the spatial preferences for future migration expressed by a number of young people, primarily stud- ents, in Uganda. This almost inevitably points to Kampala as the prt ferred goal of most. The Bolivian example is a well sign-posted study of the influence of recent immigration into a sparsely populated area, which nevertheless was already in the hands of a traditional type of Latin American landowning class. Immigration has reinforced the grip of landlords through their ability to control the terms of land tenure, with the consequence that the social condition of the poorer elements has steadily deteriorated as pressure on land has made itself felt. Movement to two nineteenth century Sheffield suburbs reveals quite distinct migration patterns based largely on the differences in social relations surrounding production in the light trades in Walkley and heavy industry in Brightside. A study of contemporary social segregation in Birmingham and the West Midlands is concerned not with the coloured population but a white élite. In France the pattern