Foreign Relations

"Winner of the 2013 Theodore Saloutos Memorial Book Award, Immigration and Ethnic History Society" Donna R. Gabaccia is professor of history and former director of the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota. Her many books include We Are What We Eat and Immigration and American Diversity.
A new history exploring U.S. immigration in global context

Histories investigating U.S. immigration have often portrayed America as a domestic melting pot, merging together those who arrive on its shores. Yet this is not a truly accurate depiction of the nation's complex connections to immigration. Offering a brand-new global history of the subject, Foreign Relations takes a comprehensive look at the links between American immigration and U.S. foreign relations. Donna Gabaccia examines America's relationship to immigration and its debates through the prism of the nation's changing foreign policy over the past two centuries. She shows that immigrants were not isolationists who cut ties to their countries of origin or their families. Instead, their relations to America were often in flux and dependent on government policies of the time.

An innovative history of U.S. immigration, Foreign Relations casts a fresh eye on a compelling and controversial topic. "Gabaccia's book is a rare treat for immigration scholars. She takes the hackneyed idea that U.S. immigration policy reflects U.S. domestic policy exclusively and turns it on its head, demanding that readers reframe immigration debates as U.S. foreign relations and, more specifically, trade relations. . . . The book would be an excellent teaching tool to explain how to challenge what scholars assume that they know." "By deftly weaving the stories of individuals and families into her discussion-not so much as illustrations of a generalized story as the basic elements of this story-Gabaccia has opened new windows onto the history of American immigration."---Orm Øverland, Journal of American History "[T]he book's expansive connections and extensive research signal its author as an impressive senior scholar in the field."---Deborah Cohen, Diplomatic History "[T]he book is an excellent summary of U.S. migration history (for which Gabaccia's strength is well known) and a courageous, insightful exploration of America's international history. In laying out the analysis concisely she not only expands migration history but provides a model for linking historical fields together. In so doing, she also expands the methodology of world history."---Patrick Manning, Journal of Social History "No one has done more than Donna Gabaccia to develop a global framework for understanding the history of American immigration. In this book, she brings together her earlier work on international migration with a new interest in American foreign relations. The result is a bold, sweeping, and provocative recasting of America's encounter with immigrants past and present."-Gary Gerstle, author of American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century "This innovative fusion of social and political history surveys the interaction between U.S. immigration, national politics, and foreign relations from colonial times to the present and from an international perspective. Gabaccia's erudition, lucid prose, and insights illuminate a fundamental process of modern American and global history with a subtlety and a sharpness that few can match."-Jose C. Moya, Barnard College "This elegant and highly original book interweaves three kinds of "foreign relations": U.S. immigration policy, American trade and diplomacy, and migrants' own transnational commitments. Examining how the United States treated immigration as a domestic matter even while its global connections multiplied, Gabaccia unpacks a paradox that clarifies the nation's past and troubles its present. Foreign Relations will win many admirers and should enrich current immigration debates."-Carl Guarneri, author of America in