“Multiculturalism”

Out of the Melting Pot, Into the Fire: Multiculturalism in the World’s Past and America’s Future, by Jens Heycke (Encounter, 345 pp., $29.99)

Pessimism about the scale and pace of migration into America has become something of a conservative mantra. The concerns center on both the scale of migration—how many foreigners should be welcomed yearly, through what channels, and what characteristics should be sought in that selection—and the corollary but distinct question of whether, and how, those migrants should be “assimilated” once here, however that term is defined. The two questions are often dealt with interconnectedly. In his 2018 book, Melting Pot or Civil War?, Manhattan Institute president Reihan Salam argued for a lower annual intake with a higher skillset because America’s “melting pot” was rapidly fraying and couldn’t be trusted to function properly at current rates, with migrants primarily low-skilled and increasingly coming from outside Europe. Similarly, while wealthier European nations had a tradition of welcoming immigrants from former colonies, both Christopher Caldwell and Douglas Murray warned that the assimilation steamroller would be overwhelmed by the droves of Muslim refugees flowing into fast-secularizing countries that had forfeited a common culture to assimilate them into.

From Britain to the Middle East, Rome enjoyed support from vast numbers of people who had a stake in its success, even though their ancestors were not originally Roman or even Italian.

Nearly 2,000 years ago, the Roman emperor Gaius assembled a massive invasion force and marched it across Europe to the English Channel. The elite of the greatest army in the world, along with a massive array of siege engines, drew up in battle formation along the shore, awaiting orders. Mounting a platform, Gaius commanded the trumpets to sound and then issued the orders: “Gather shells!” The soldiers frantically scrambled around the beach to fill their helmets with seashells. Gaius then erected a monument to celebrate this “victory against the sea” and transported the “booty” a thousand miles back to Rome for a triumphal march.