Includes bibliographical references (p. 309-332) and index.

Immigration, writes Maldwyn Allen Jones, was America's historic raison d'etre. Reminding us that the history of immigration to the United States is also the history of emigration from somewhere else, Mr. Jones considers the forces that uprooted emigrants from their homes in different parts of the world and analyzes the social, economic, and psychological adjustments that American life demanded of them--adjustments essentially the same for the Jamestown settlers and for Vietnamese refugees. As well as measuring the impact of America on the lives of the sixty million or so immigrants who have arrived since 1607, he assesses their role in industrialization, the westward movement, labor organization, politics, foreign policy, the growth of American nationalism, and the theory and practice of democracy