Understandably, given the sensitivities involved, the words Islam and Muslim barely come up in this immensely important study of immigration. But The Culture Transplant has obvious and major implications for comprehending the movement of Middle Eastern, African, and South Asian peoples to the West. Jones, an economist at George Mason University, starts by noting the common assumption that immigrants and their descendants assimilate into their adopted countries; he then devotes his short book to refute this erroneous belief.

He first acknowledges the triple intellectual origins of this inquiry: 1990s computing power; an influential 1997 article by Xavier Sala-i-Martin that pointed to cultural factors as a major component of economic growth; and the surge in scholarship on the role of culture that then followed.

Jones argues that “the shadow of the past is transmitted through culture to shape the diverse economies we see around the world today.” He cites the case of Argentina, which went from one of the richest countries to a poor one, as an example of immigration drastically changing political ideas and economic institutions. Focusing on levels of trust (“a critical ingredient in the nation’s prosperity recipe”), he notes the persistence of patterns of trust or mistrust unto the fourth generation.

In his words, “immigration, to a large degree, creates a culture transplant, making the places that migrants go a lot like the places they left. And for good and for ill, those culture transplants shape a nation’s future.” Further, “some countries are more likely than other countries to export the kind of attitudes that build a nation’s prosperity.”

While Jones limits himself to economic growth, cultural traits undoubtedly have a comparable longevity when it comes to other aspects of life as well, such as attitudes about gender, religion, and politics. The moral is simple: control your border and pick your immigrants wisely. And woe to those who do not.