Nativism Is Alive and Thriving in America

A Review of "Not Fit for Our Society: Immigration and Nativism in America" by Peter Schrag

Abstract: For those who prefer light to heat on the immigration question, Not Fit for Our Society is the perfect place to start. Drawing on his decades of reporting and reading of primary sources and the latest scholarship, Schrag traces the strange career of American nativism and America’s enduring ambivalence about immigration from the Puritan saints to the Tea Partiers. He delivers a story rich in irony, detail, and nuance, often told with passion and frequently challenging orthodoxies of both the political right and left. It is the right book at the right time, a worthy successor to John Higham’s classic history of U.S. nativism, Strangers in the Land.

Original article (subscription).

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