Good historical look at 19th century religious undertones regarding immigration. Considering the nation's current immigration questions, such a look at history can be useful.

Excellent history of Protestantism in America. This is a fascinating treatment of the subject and I learned a lot about the subject. I would highly recommend this to anyone interested in the subject. The book is very readable despite the scholarly tone. ( )

William Phalen's work goes beyond just the relationship between American Evangelical Protestantism and European Immigrants. In American history the Protestant was first on the scene (excluding Native Americans) and had set up a way of life to reflect their beliefs. The Protestants biggest fear was that the Catholic would come shortly after and force their allegiance to Rome on them. While the Protestant vs. Catholic situation was already occurring in Europe for the past 300 years the dynamic was different in America since the Catholics were new to the scene. When Catholic immigrants started arrive on the shores of America the protestants had a strong reaction against it, fearing that America would shortly thereafter become a nation with a Catholic state religion. It is the author's contention that the reason for the intense backlash goes beyond the vast religious differences in the basic beliefs between Protestants and Catholics and he attempts to substantiate this claim through many quotations from Protestant writings and sermons. The book is reasonably thorough and takes the reader through various subjects (cities, politics, the Irish, education, temperance and others). The writing is easy to follow and allows the reader to understand the basic forces molding the view of European Immigrants during this time frame. I recommend this book to anyone who would like to understand the basic mindset being set forth toward immigration during this time frame.

This must have been the author's doctoral dissertation. The ground is not new, but there are quite a few interesting details here. I took away only one point--that the anti-immigrant attitudes now despised on the supposed cultural heights were once, and not so long ago, quite at home there. I'm not sure that I see what the author wanted to say. Immigrants were disliked--no surprise there. They objected to this--again, no surprise.

I really like this book. When reading it, I learend new information that I never saw in any of my previous textbooks. Thank you, William. You did a very good job. ( )