Whiteshift is a sprawling tome ... Kaufmann...is at pains to show that whites who identify with their group are not necessarily racist ... Ultimately, Kaufmann argues that the best thing would be to accept a moderate form of white identity politics as a more benign alternative to contemporary populism, which in his view is merely a sublimated form of ethno-nationalism. That can sound, written out, as a sort of brief for white nationalism-lite ... But Kaufmann has done something exceedingly rare among center-right thinkers, which is to write an intelligent, challenging, and in its own way, brave book about race and identity; one not meant to fire up partisans but to make an honest attempt to understand our present dilemmas and propose a solution. He won’t convince all readers, and reviewers more data-literate than I may be able to better evaluate the reams of surveys and statistics that Kaufmann cites in his favor. But at present, Whiteshift is the best diagnosis of populism the right has to offer, and presents compelling arguments that defenders of asymmetric multiculturalism should be prepared to answer.

What is it about the West today that makes it such fertile soil for right-wing extremism? On this point, Kaufmann is clearsighted ... There are some glaring omissions in Kaufmann’s diagnosis. Most notably, he gives short shrift to the vital role of anti-black prejudice and backlash to the Obama presidency in Trump’s rise. But his basic claim, that a root cause of Trump’s and the European far right’s rise is a sense of cultural dislocation on the part of native whites, is persuasive ... Kaufmann is mostly talking about research on race in America here—and he is presenting a straw man portrait of it ... Kaufmann does not engage with the literature in any sustained way ... the sense you’d get from reading Whiteshift’s middle chapters is that 'anti-white radicalism'—his term—is a bigger problem in the modern West than actual racial discrimination ... Kaufmann ends up betraying the liberalism he set out to defend ... providing intellectual fuel to the far right’s arguments.

Although I think that there are some things in this book that are plain wrong, and although I sometimes feel the academic straining always towards his thesis, I believe that this is an essential read for liberals ... You may not agree with Kaufmann, but you have to deal with him ... So where does Kaufmann go wrong? Take this example. It’s his argument that an essential part of American-ness has been its whiteness, even for minorities. So, for example, Jewish actors have taken Wasp stage names and even minorities, when asked to choose a typical American surname, go for Anglo names. But Kaufmann must surely know that the great-grandparents of most African-Americans were given Anglo names by their owners.

Kaufmann’s book could use a deeper analysis of scapegoating as a factor in current politics, helped by leverage from new media that peddle paranoia and conspiracy theories ... Kaufmann has done a service in assembling the facts about present inter-ethnic relations in the West. But I fear that his ideas about 'what is to be done?' may end up being filed under 'wishful thinking.'”

Unusually, Kaufmann is fluent in opinion surveys and political demography too. That alone ensures that Whiteshift is a very substantial book with important things to say about identity, migration, populism and other questions of the moment ... When Kaufmann writes history he is very good. Anyone might profit from the chapters on immigration to the USA ... One of the best aspects of Kaufmann’s book is its optimism. He does not regard the current migration crisis as insoluble ... A few critical thoughts need airing about Kaufmann’s book. It is very long ... The graphs and tables do not help the smooth reading of the book, and the monochrome graphics are too poor in quality to make them easily comprehensible. Not every reader will be as interested as the professor in following the playpen antics of the postmodern academy. At times the book feels like an assemblage of earlier articles, and some of Kaufmann’s sensible policy prescriptions are scattered throughout the book, rather than situated in a dedicated section. Kaufmann also risks giving too much weight to one particular cause of the current populist conniptions ... the problem of immigration may pale in significance beside the massive technological changes ensuing from Industrial Revolution 4.0, a subject totally absent from this important book.

Whiteshift is a hefty work crammed with data and graphs. The trouble with viewing the world primarily in demographic terms, though, is that, for all the facts and figures, it is easy to be blind to the social context ... demography is a blunt tool through which to make sense of social hostility. Key in understanding the shift from class to ethnicity are perceptions of change, not just of ethnicity but also of class ... Kaufmann wants to normalize attachment to 'white identity.' Historically, such identity has been the means through which to promote racism. Today, many on the far right use it as a way of rebranding their bigotry ... Kaufmann’s argument is, ironically, the mirror image of that of leftwing identitarians; both see whiteness as a homogenizing label, one for a repository of privilege, the other for common interests.

... the further [Kaufmann] moves away from the data, the more his argument is undermined by the contradictory assumptions on which it is based ... Why is it that fears of white decline seem to have the greatest political power in countries such as Hungary and Poland where the immigration levels are negligible? If we’re really talking about whiteness as a shared identity, isn’t it shared in Southern and Eastern Europe too? Why are these regions any less worthy of consideration? ... Ethnicity in this context seems a euphemism for race rather than an alternative to it. The feeling grows stronger the further you get into Whiteshift, because despite Kaufmann’s opening declaration that whiteness should be considered an ethnic identity, he keeps sliding back into talking about race ... It is striking in [this] book just how little immigrants or minority ethnic groups feature as people. They are liquid quantities, to be allowed to flow or stoppered up as required; or they are potential threats to be neutralised or tolerated. Kaufmann fails to see the danger in what [he is] proposing ... close[s] off any possibility that the prevailing order might be challenged by people coming together in their difference to work towards common goals. Unless we can move beyond arguments like [his], sooner or later we will come to realise that the walls we build to defend ourselves are the walls of a prison.

In this ambitious and provocative work, politics professor Kaufmann...delves into white anxiety about the demographic decline of white populations in Western nations ... Although it has a marked point of view, this is a data-driven work, informed by public opinion studies and theoretical insights from psychology, philosophy, and anthropology. This challenging book is likely to make a big splash and certain to appeal to quantitatively inclined centrists and conservatives longing for an academic defender.