This book examines so far unused or relatively underused primary sources, investigates secondary resources and engages with the existing literature that deals with immigration but is not focused on attitudes nor always covers the entire period after 1921 to provide context. It links post-1921 developments to what was set in motion before 1921 to sketch a long history that runs into the present. To determine what was specifically British, it makes international comparisons.

The linguistic historical approach applied in this book brings it all together for the first time. It discovers when and how attitudes to immigrants in Britain changed after 1921, where they originated and what language was used to voice these attitudes, in particular specific words, their meanings, the under- or overtones they bore, and what people meant or felt when they used them.