The book still has relevance to such current topics as immigration policy, environmental protection, economic growth, and racial tensions.

To take perhaps the most notorious example, James indulged in racist criticism of black people as incapable of alertness and attention, then praised the "most accomplished" W. E. B.

Similarly, James was full of misgivings about unrestricted immigration and its effect on America's already thinly stretched social fabric.

[1] But he conceded that the strong assimilative forces of American life would work on the children of the immigrants, "the younger generation who will fully profit, rise to the occasion, and enter into the privilege" of full citizenship.

In the last section of the book he denounced America's spoliation of "the great lonely land", its frantic economic development, and its festering social tensions.