This is London: Life and Death in the World City

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This is the new London: an immigrant city. Over one-third of Londoners were born abroad, with half arriving since the millennium. This has utterly transformed the capital, for better and for worse. This is an important book - one that should open our eyes to the price others often pay for our comfort. * Daily Telegraph * Romanian is the rough sleeper’s language here. This is where I met Ionut and Lucian, two Roma beggars from Romania. They had just arrived. They could hardly comprehend the wealth now surrounding them: super-cars and icing sugar mansions.

This is a book written in a flowing/poetic journalistic style, it's intention is to inform us about the real life situation in London.The mainstream media plays an important role in how the public understands issues, such as immigration.In the UK a liberal/progressive political ideology dominates and affects the framing, meaning we tend not to hear the opposing anti-immigration argument,we mostly hear that immigration and diversity is a very positive thing that greatly benefits both the immigrant and the country they move to.This author gives us the other side of the story. A wonderfully-written, fascinating account of modern-day life, offering a glimpse of the world from those arriving in the city hoping for a better life. . .an important, detailed read on the stories of those often unheard -- Simon Peach * Press Association * There is no way anyone living off the touting spots can afford their own room. This is why the next step up from the street is a doss house. These are pretty easy to find. These are where crooked landlords are cramming as many as they can into overcrowded, illegal, cheap rooms. Undercover, the worst doss house I ever lived in was 15 shoved into three rooms. They shared beds, and one night worker time-shared a bunk in the day. An eye-opening investigation into the hidden immigrant life of the city . . . You won't read a more succinct analysis * Sunday Times *Judah does an excellent job of humanising the dispossessed, in a book that every Daily Mail aficionado / racist Brexiteer should read to get over themselves. He goes to extreme measures to capture the voices of these people, posing as an itinerant worker and sleeping rough with his subjects to get them to open up to him.

Xinjiang: Taming China's Wild West | Standpoint". Archived from the original on 9 March 2016 . Retrieved 19 February 2016. A chronicle of the capital so incisively up-to-date it is disconcerting, invigorating, and depressing all at once . . . Judah allows the new Londoners to speak for themselves and, in so doing, shines a light on the dark corners of the city -- Lilian Pizzichini * Mail on Sunday * Judah has succeeded in opening reader's eyes to the hardships experienced by many and ignored by most * Independent *

Summary

Ben Judah offers no answers; but bears witness. He reports the stories of London's immigrants with a smart mind, a light touch and a brave and compassionate heart. These statements deserve to be heard. This is London is an important, state of the nation, eye-opening report from our increasingly ghettoized capital city -- Dan Boothby, author of Island of Dreams Judah grabs hold of London and shakes out its secrets. He has a gift for ingratiating himself into very foreign surroundings and teasing out stories. . .Judah has done an important service in capturing the voices of those swept to the margins by economic forces beyond their control * Economist * Given the predicaments the subjects inhabit, which are mostly perilous or exploitative, this is probably no great surprise. Still, you can’t help wonder whether this human churn, this vast cheap labour source and the global instability that drives it, is sustainable. There was one final thing, which is that everybody in the book is a storyteller. They all want to tell their stories and they all think that their stories say something profound and important about Europe today. And all of the stories add up to a question. All of the great political philosophies—liberalism, socialism, conservatism—they’re all about how we should live. What is a good life? And all of the people in the book are asking themselves, and they’re also asking you, is this the way we want to live now? You spoke earlier about how those within and beyond the continent perceive Europe. How do you think This Is Europe will challenge, or enhance, those perceptions? It does feel as though he is trying far too hard to demonstrate that the changes to London and the people that are arriving are nothing but a problem to those who have been there longer. Despite his protestation in the preface (this in itself tells you straight away the angle he is going for).