Book Review: Harvest of Empire
Harvest of Empire by Juan Gonzalez book review essay:
From time immemorial, humans always had the ‘urge’ to move into new geographical territories with various motivations. Starting from earlier motivations of discovering new lands, imperialism to current economic motivations, people enter new countries en masse. This movement for economic development is known as immigration in present day context, and there are few economically developed countries, which elicit high number of immigrants. This immigration experience is one of the constant affairs of American life, as people from all over the world, view America as the land of immense opportunities, and enter it both legally and illegally. This view about America was critically analyzed by Juan Gonzales in his book titled, Harvest of Empire, focusing mainly on the immigration of the Latino population and how it impacts America’s foreign policies as well. Gonzales provides the readers a historical overview of how the Latino immigration started centuries ago, and at the same time provides a laser-like analysis of the current events, that are impacting the Latino population and thereby America’s politics and diplomacy. So, this paper will first provide a review of the book and then will analyze how its contents, particularly the portions which focus on the current issues impacting the Latino population, relate to today’s politics and diplomacy.
