Immigration

How the Past Shapes the Present
1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-5095-5791-2
Verlag: Polity Press

Buch, Englisch, 208 Seiten

American history is, in part, a history of immigration – of waves of people from other lands making their way to America's shores. That extraordinary history is at the heart of this book by Nancy Foner, one of America's leading immigration scholars.

Immigration: How the Past Shapes the Present argues that the past is critical in understanding current immigration; that a new historical perspective offers important insights into what is happening today. Foner examines both the facts of immigration in the past and how they are perceived – the stories, myths, and memories that color how we think of immigration today and equally important the politics that govern it. This new historical perspective helps us understand contemporary nativism, helps distinguish what is new from long established patterns, reveals how legacies of earlier immigration shape the lives of present-day arrivals, and offers a fresh look at what lies ahead.

The book is especially relevant at a time when immigration history is being made – on an almost daily basis – yet scholarship on today's immigration does not always consider the past. Drawing on a wealth of historical and contemporary research, the book makes a clear and powerful case for writing history into the study of contemporary immigration.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Foner, Nancy

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Politische Soziologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein Demographie, Demoskopie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Historische Migrationsforschung
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Kultur Politische Soziologie und Psychologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction: A New Perspective on Immigration, Past and Present

2. What Do We Remember? Myths, Memories, and Misperceptions of America's Immigrant Past

3. Nativism, Hostility, and Nostalgia

4. How the Immigrant Past Shapes the Immigrant Present

5. Different Histories: U.S.-Europe Comparisons

6. Conclusion: Past, Present, and Future

Über Autor(innen)

Nancy Foner is Distinguished Professor Emerita of Sociology at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York.