Written just after the passing of the 1924 Immigration Act, this book by one of America's most prominent racial thinkers is an in-depth analysis of the racial developments which led to the American Revolution, the Civil War and the mass immigration of the late nineteenth century which disrupted the until-then almost entirely North-Western European colonization of North America. Delighted that the 1924 law effectively stopped all further mass migration, Stoddard devoted the rest of this work to discussing solutions to what he called the existing "racial dilemmas" facing America, namely the threat of illegal Mexican immigration, the growth in black numbers and unassimilable European immigrants. Although the 1924 act was repealed in the 1960s, this book contains many observations on race and the implications of mass migration which are more applicable than ever before. Contents Preface I. The Foundations Of Old America II. The Beginning Of National Life III. The First Forging Of America IV. The Schism Of The Civil War V. The Shattering Of Old America VI. The Alien Flood VII. On The Road To Ruin VIII. The Great Awakening IX. The Closing Of The Gates X. The Will To National Unity XI. The Dilemma Of Color XII. Bi-Racialism: The Key To Social Peace XIII. The Scope Of The Task Before Us XIV. Re-Forging America Index

Written just after the passing of the 1924 Immigration Act, this book by one of America's most prominent racial thinkers is an in-depth analysis of the racial developments which led to the American Revolution, the Civil War and the mass immigration of the late nineteenth century which disrupted the until-then almost entirely North-Western European colonization of North America. Delighted that the 1924 law effectively stopped all further mass migration, Stoddard devoted the rest of this work to discussing solutions to what he called the existing "racial dilemmas" facing America, namely the threat of illegal Mexican immigration, the growth in black numbers and unassimilable European immigrants. "We want above all things to preserve America. But 'America,' as we have already seen, is not a mere geographical expression; it is a nation, whose foundations were laid over three hundred years ago by Anglo-Saxon Nordics, and whose nationhood is due almost exclusively to people of North European stock-not only the old colonists and their descendants but also many millions of North Europeans who have entered the country since colonial times and who have for the most part been thoroughly assimilated. Despite the recent influx of alien elements, therefore, the American people is still predominantly a blend of closely related North European strains, and the fabric of American life is fundamentally their creation." Although the 1924 act was repealed in the 1960s, this book contains many observations on race and the implications of mass migration which are more applicable than ever before. Contents Preface I. The Foundations Of Old America II. The Beginning Of National Life III. The First Forging Of America IV. The Schism Of The Civil War V. The Shattering Of Old America VI. The Alien Flood VII. On The Road To Ruin VIII. The Great Awakening IX. The Closing Of The Gates X. The Will To National Unity XI. The Dilemma Of Color XII. Bi-Racialism: The Key To Social Peace XIII. The Scope Of The Task Before Us XIV. Re-Forging America Index

About the struggle to create a national myth for the United States, one that could hold its rival regional cultures together and forge, for the first time, an American nationhood. Tells the dramatic tale of how the story of America's national origins, identity, and purpose was intentionally created and fought over in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

From the acclaimed historian and New Yorker writer comes this urgent manifesto on the dilemma of nationalism and the erosion of liberalism in the twenty-first century. At a time of much despair over the future of liberal democracy, Jill Lepore makes a stirring case for the nation in This America, a follow-up to her much-celebrated history of the United States, These Truths. With dangerous forms of nationalism on the rise, Lepore, a Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer, repudiates nationalism here by explaining its long history—and the history of the idea of the nation itself—while calling for a “new Americanism”: a generous patriotism that requires an honest reckoning with America’s past. Lepore begins her argument with a primer on the origins of nations, explaining how liberalism, the nation-state, and liberal nationalism, developed together. Illiberal nationalism, however, emerged in the United States after the Civil War—resulting in the failure of Reconstruction, the rise of Jim Crow, and the restriction of immigration. Much of American history, Lepore argues, has been a battle between these two forms of nationalism, liberal and illiberal, all the way down to the nation’s latest, bitter struggles over immigration. Defending liberalism, as This America demonstrates, requires making the case for the nation. But American historians largely abandoned that defense in the 1960s when they stopped writing national history. By the 1980s they’d stopped studying the nation-state altogether and embraced globalism instead. “When serious historians abandon the study of the nation,” Lepore tellingly writes, “nationalism doesn’t die. Instead, it eats liberalism.” But liberalism is still in there, Lepore affirms, and This America is an attempt to pull it out. “In a world made up of nations, there is no more powerful way to fight the forces of prejudice, intolerance, and injustice than by a dedication to equality, citizenship, and equal rights, as guaranteed by a nation of laws.” A manifesto for a better nation, and a call for a “new Americanism,” This America reclaims the nation’s future by reclaiming its past.