Major Problems in American Immigration History: Documents and Essays, 2nd Edition

Major Problems in American History

by Jon Gjerde (Editor), Mae M. Ngai (Editor)

Designed to encourage critical thinking about history, the MAJOR PROBLEMS IN AMERICAN HISTORY series introduces readers to both primary sources and analytical essays on important topics in American history. The collection of essays and documents in MAJOR PROBLEMS IN AMERICAN IMMIGRATION HISTORY explores themes such as the political and economic forces that cause immigration; the alienation and uprootedness that often follow relocation; and the difficult questions of citizenship and assimilation. This text presents a carefully selected group of readings organized to allow readers to evaluate primary sources, test the interpretations of distinguished historians, and draw their own conclusions. Each chapter includes introductions, source notes, and suggested readings.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Textbooks, Grad School

640 pages, Paperback

First published September 30, 2011

About the author

Jon Gjerde (February 25, 1953 – October 26, 2008) was an American historian and the Alexander F. and May T. Morrison Professor of American History and American Citizenship at the University of California, Berkeley, where he also served as dean of the Division of Social Sciences in the College of Letters and Science at the University of California, Berkeley.

Gjerde's research concerned European immigration to the Midwestern United States and European immigrants in the midwest. Among other accolades, Gjerde won three Theodore Saloutos Memorial Book awards for his writings on immigration and agricultural history. He was most commonly associated with his two prizewinning books, From Peasants to Farmers: The Migration from Balestrand, Norway, to the Upper Middle West (1989) and The Minds of the West: Ethnocultural Evolution in the Rural Middle West, 1830–1917 (1997).