BRITAIN is a mongrel nation. Without immigrants Britain would not have tea, pizza, curries, pasta and kebabs.

Nor would it have institutions and companies founded and run by foreigners, such as Eton, The Times, the London Stock Exchange, Dolland & Aitcheson, Rothschilds, ICL, Triumph, GEC, the Ritz Hotel, Selfridges, Schweppes, Marks & Spencer and Tesco.

Nor would the country be able to claim many writers, artists, musicians, actors, sportsmen and women, politicians and captains of industry, such as Anthony Van Dyck, Handel, Gustav Holst, and Joseph Conrad.

Or TS Eliot, George Michael, David Garrick, Leslie Howard, Oscar Wilde, Linford Christie, Karl Popper, George Bernard Shaw, Harold Pinter, Muriel Spark, Anita Brookner, Siegfried Sassoon, Peter Schaffer, Lew Grade, Kazuo Ishiguro or Germaine Greer.

Great Britain has grown from dense ethnic roots, yet immigration generates strong hostility.

Robert Winder tells the epic story of British immigration from the period when hunter-gatherers fled the frozen wastes to the asylum seekers of the 21st century. His rich narrative reveals how much of what we regard as "typically British" was shaped by foreigners who have, over the centuries, settled in the British Isles.

The Romans brought roads and the rule of law; the Normans a legacy of castles, cathedrals and a feudal system; Flemish Protestants helped the Industrial Revolution by transforming the English from wool-gatherers to textile workers.

Indeed, the Huguenots symbolised the Protestant work ethic and, with their business acumen, became the midwives of British capitalism.

Many foreigners have not been so welcome.

The Jews were first supported by kings who gained from their wealth. But there were uprisings against them, including the infamous deaths of about 150 Jews in Clifford's Tower, York, in 1190. One hundred years later Edward I expelled the Jews from his kingdom in an act that would resonate across Christendom.

Gipsies also fared badly in York, with nine of them being executed in the city in 1595.

The Irish, fleeing poverty and starvation, poured into cites such as Liverpool, Manchester, London and Glasgow in the mid-19th century. But they were regarded as barbaric, rather than fellow nationals.

After the Second World War, the Nationality Act gave all imperial subjects the right of free entry, but the reception for people from the West Indies, India, Pakistan and Africa was fear and outright racial hostility.

The many migrations since the war have set Britain on the path to becoming a plural and diverse society.

Britain has been both resistant and accommodating to immigration down the centuries, yet, in the end, it is a tribute to the country, with its reputation for fairness and tolerance, that foreigners seek sanctuary here.

British tolerance for immigration, even if grudgingly given, usually wins out over violent acts and hysterical speeches.

Bloody Foreigners is a fascinating history of Great Britain from an unusual and important perspective.

Updated: 08:43 Wednesday, June 09, 2004