Hardcover, 310 pages
English language
Published June 9, 1951 by Atlantic Monthly Press.
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This is a book that simply had to be written. Some years ago, after reading Oscar Handlin's learned book, Boston's Immigrants, the publishers asked him to write the history of the great migrations to the New World to tell the epic story in one volume, with footnotes and references, of how the peoples flooding to America made it the country that it is. The contract was signed and the author set to work with a scholarly book in mind.
But in the process of writing his book. Mr. Handlin discovered that he had far more than an academic interest in his subject; he found that he was emotionally involved, as well. He was himself a part of the epic he was writing about, the son of one of those 35 million immigrants who had come to this country in search of freedom and opportunity. And since he was emotionally involved, …
This is a book that simply had to be written. Some years ago, after reading Oscar Handlin's learned book, Boston's Immigrants, the publishers asked him to write the history of the great migrations to the New World to tell the epic story in one volume, with footnotes and references, of how the peoples flooding to America made it the country that it is. The contract was signed and the author set to work with a scholarly book in mind.
But in the process of writing his book. Mr. Handlin discovered that he had far more than an academic interest in his subject; he found that he was emotionally involved, as well. He was himself a part of the epic he was writing about, the son of one of those 35 million immigrants who had come to this country in search of freedom and opportunity. And since he was emotionally involved, the whole texture and color of his writing was affected. The scholar didn't abdicate, but the creative writer stepped in, and the result is a book of noble dimensions, a paean to America.