Boston's Immigrants, 1790-1880

As fresh in 1991 as when it first published a half-century ago, Boston's Immigrants illuminates the history of a particular city and an important phase of the American experience. Focusing on the life of people from the perspective of the social historian, the book explores a wide range of subjects: peasants society and the cause of European migration, population growth and industrial development, the ideology of progress and Catholic thought, and urban politics and the dynamic of prejudice. A generation of students and scholars has profited from its insights, and general readers have enjoyed its lively style. A new preface by the author reflects upon the book's intellectual origins.

As fresh in 1991 as when it first published a half-century ago, Boston's Immigrants illuminates the history of a particular city and an important phase of the American experience. Focusing on the life of people from the perspective of the social historian, the book explores a wide range of subjects: peasants society and the cause of European migration, population growth and industrial development, the ideology of progress and Catholic thought, and urban politics and the dynamic of prejudice. A generation of students and scholars has profited from its insights, and general readers have enjoyed its lively style. A new preface by the author reflects upon the book's intellectual origins.

American Sociological Review

An excellent case study in the great problem of social assimilation. One feature, among others, that stands out clearly is its refutation of the all-too-comforting and popular notion that the American community, local or national, has been able to accept great contingencies of foreign population without experiencing significant and lasting modifications of its own cultural features.

Oscar Handlin, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, is Carl M. Loeb University Professor, Emeritus, Harvard University. He is the editor of This Was America.