The Scramble for Europe

Stephen Smith is a leading expert on contemporary Africa. After thirty years as a journalist at Libération and Le Monde, he is now Professor of African Studies at Duke University.

"The Scramble for Europe is a calm, measured book that aims to take the emotion out of the debate about immigration from Africa, while at the same time not avoiding the difficult issues by pretending that the situation is under control. It is an approach that runs against the grain of politics. Hence the enormous importance of this book at a time when Old Europe is trying to make allies on the young continent in the hope that these inescapable movements of people will remain an African affair."
Le Monde
 
"A must-read for anyone who wants to understand today's perilous migration flows."
Midi Libre
 
"An indispensable book for understanding the key challenges of the coming decades."
Le Point
 
'Stephen Smith has written a remarkably dispassionate, factual and insightful analysis of the Europe-Africa predicament. He succeeds in stepping back from fearful, moralized narratives and short-term perspectives in order to grasp the bigger social, cultural and political implications of Africa's demographic abundance and the vast migrations it undoubtedly entails. He poses questions that Europeans and Africans can no longer afford to ignore.'
Alex De Waal, Tufts University
 
"Provocative and well-researched"
Digital Insider
 
"Stephen Smith is at his best."
Financial Times