Nativism has been hard for historians to define. The word is distinctively American, a product of a specific chain of events in eastern American cities in the late 1830's and early 1840's. Yet it has a meaning so broad and indefinite that sometimes it seems to refer to a perennial human experience. Does nativism consist only of a particular complex of attitudes dominant in the anti-foreign crusade of the mid-nineteenth century? Or does it extend to every occasion when native inhabitants of a country turn their faces or raise their hands against strangers in their midst? What is nativism?

An exciting, mature volume, a tightly knit narrative that progresses with all the momentum of adventure fiction, the sparkling prose of a gifted writer, the sweeping generalization of a seasoned scholar. It is a stimulating appraisal of one phase of the American mind during its growth to maturity.

HighamÆs scholarly study of the ebb and flow of restrictive immigration since the Civil War has succeeded so admirably that it truly illuminates our times.

. . . a brilliantly executed study . . . an exceedingly able piece of historical research and analysis.

This book attempts a general history of the anti-foreign spirit that I have defined as nativism. It tries to show how American nativism evolved its own distinctive patterns, how it has ebbed and flowed under the pressure of successive impulses in American history, how it has fared at every social level and in every section where it left a mark, and how it has passed into action. Fundamentally, this remains a study of public opinion, but I have sought to follow the movement of opinion wherever it led, relating it to political pressures, social organization, economic changes, and intellectual interests.

. . . a tempered handling of a passionate theme . . . an important contribution.