CRITICAL YEARS IN IMMIGRATION: CANADA AND AUSTRALIA COMPARED Freda Hawkins Montreal, McGill-Queen's University Press, 1989. 392pp, cloth. $35.00 ISBN 0-7735-0622-5. CIP Grades 11 and up/Ages 16 and up Reviewed by John D. Crawford. Volume 17 Number 4 1989 July This book presents a comparison of immigration policy and trends in Australia and Canada since 1972. The first chapter provides a brief survey of immigration policy in the two countries from 1900 to 1972. These policies were clearly preferential and racist. A feature of the current situation is the development in both countries of multiculturalism, which recognizes the desire of immigrants to retain their cultural identity. It is in discussing the matter of refugees that Hawkins touches on the emotional nature of immigration and the understanding that it is impossible to have an immigration policy determined solely by the particular economic needs of the receiving country. Critical Years in Immigration concentrates on policy development and provides a detailed summary of the political process involved. The various threads of immigration policy are drawn together clearly, and a principal strength of the book is that it does present a picture of development of policy rather than a procession of different policies. The text is supported by twenty-five pages of appendices, twenty-eight pages of end-notes, a twelve-page bibliography, and an index. The author writes with considerable ease and erudition, and this enables the reader to follow the complications of a subject that is of great importance to both Australia and Canada. This book would seem to be aimed at the reader with some background knowledge of the subject and will find most of its readership at the post-secondary level. It is highly recommended to those with an interest in the subject of immigration. John D. Crawford, Marigold School, Victoria, B.C.