By Luke Ritter

"Why have Americans expressed concern about immigration at some times but not at others? In pursuit of an answer, this book examines America’s first nativist movement, which responded to the rapid influx of 4.2 million immigrants between 1840 and 1860 and culminated in the dramatic rise of the National American Party. As previous studies have focused on the coasts, historians have not yet completely explained why westerners joined the ranks of the National American, or “Know Nothing,” Party or why the nation’s bloodiest anti-immigrant riots erupted in western cities—namely Chicago, Cincinnati, Louisville, and St. Louis. In focusing on the antebellum West, Inventing America’s First Immigration Crisis illuminates the cultural, economic, and political issues that originally motivated American nativism and explains how it ultimately shaped the political relationship between church and state. In six detailed chapters, Ritter explains how unprecedented immigration from Europe and rapid westward expansion reignited fears of Catholicism as a corrosive force. He presents new research on the inner sanctums of the secretive Order of Know-Nothings and provides original data on immigration, crime, and poverty in the urban West. Ritter argues that the country’s first bout of political nativism actually renewed Americans’ commitment to church-state separation. Native-born Americans compelled Catholics and immigrants, who might have otherwise shared an affinity for monarchism, to accept American-style democracy. Catholics and immigrants forced Americans to adopt a more inclusive definition of religious freedom. This study offers valuable insight into the history of nativism in U.S. politics and sheds light on present-day concerns about immigration, particularly the role of anti-Islamic appeals in recent elections."

New York: Fordham University Press, 2021. 267p.+

By Virginia J. Hunter

FROM THE INTRODUCTION: “The title of his work, Policing Athens, is deliberately ambiguous, meant to convey the ambiguity inherent in the notion of policing itself, since policing has a number of connotations. In the first place, it may refer to social regulation, or the role played by government in "regulating the welfare, security, and order of a city"-a government may, for example, have institutionalized procedures for ensuring the supply of food or for controlling nuisances (Hay and Snyder, 1989:5, 21; cf. Critchley, 1972:24). Policing of this kind was certainly not absent from the city-state. In fact, Athens had a whole host of officials, for the most part annually selected boards of magistrates, each devoted to an aspect of social regulation.”

Princeton, New Jersey. Princeton University Press. 1994. 305p.

USED BOOK. MAY CONTAIN MARK-UP

By Niccolò Machiavelli. Introduction By Max Lerner

FROM THE INTRODUCTION: “WE LIvE today in the shadow of a Florentine, the man who above all others taught the world to think in terms of cold political power. His name was Niccold Machiavelli, and he was one of those rare intellectuals who write about politics because they have had a hand in politics and learned what it is about. His portraits show a thin-faced, pale little man, with a sharp nose, sunken cheeks, subtle lips, a discreet and enigmatic smile, and piercing black eyes that look as if they knew much more than they were willing to tell…”

NY. Random House. 1950. 587p.

USED BOOK. MAY CONTAIN MARK-UP

Edited By David Womersley

FROM THE INTRODUCTION: “Edward Gibbon (1737-94) published The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in three instalments between 1776 and 1788. It was an immediate popular success, selling (as the delighted author put it) 'like a sixpenny pamphlet on the news of the day'. The book was immediately involved in controversy for its supposed hostility to established religion. But Gibbon's attitudes were much more nuanced, his intentions much more complicated, and his historical interests vastly more profound, than were those of any deist….”

London. Penguin Books. 1995. 97p.

USED BOOK. MAY CONTAIN MARK-UP

Edited With An Introduction By De Lamar Jensen

FROM THE INTRODUCTION: “ In more than four hundred years of evaluation and reinterpretation, few names in European history have caused more disagreement and controversy than Machiavelli's. Nearly everyone who has written on modem European history, and particularly on the Renaissance, agrees that Machiavelli was one of the most important figures of the century, but rarely will they concur on the reason for his prominence. Why has this polemic continued so long without sign of abating or losing its vigor? Undoubtedly there can be many answers, and among them certainly is the fact that Machiavelli’s written words deal with subjects of lasting and vital interest to all ages. People of every generation must ask themselves the questions which Machiavelli aroused. What is the relationship between politics and morals? Does the end really justify the means? What is the nature and role of the state? How are liberty and order to be balanced and maintained? To the historian an infinite number of additional problems are suggested by the life and writings of this Renaissance Floren¬tine, from the question of his relationship to the humanist writers of his time to the methods and motives of his public and pri-vate life. For Machiavelli was not restricted to one career, and each of them — diplomat, secretary, statesman, military strategist, political philosopher, historian, man of letters — offers a rich and rewarding field for schol¬arly investigation…”

Boston. D. C. Heath. Problems In European Civilization. 1960. 131p.

By Alan Greenspan

“This book is in part a detective story. After 9/11 I knew, if I needed further reinforcement, that we are living in a new world—the world of a global capitalist economy that is vastly more flexible, resilient, open, self-correcting, and fast-changing than it was even a quarter century earlier. It’s a world that presents us with enormous new possibilities but also enormous new chal­lenges. The Age of Turbulence is my attempt to understand the nature of this new world: how we got here, what were living through, and what lies over the horizon, for good and for ill. Where possible, I convey my understanding in the context of my own experiences. I do this out of a sense of responsibil­ity to the historical record, and so that readers will know where I’m coming from. The book is therefore divided into halves: the first half is my effort to retrace the arc of my learning curve, and the second half is a more objective effort to use this as the foundation on which to erect a conceptual framework for understanding the new global economy. Along the way I explore critical elements of this emerging global environment: the principles of governing it; the vast energy infrastructure that powers it; the global financial imbalances and dramatic shifts in world demographics that threaten it; and, despite its unquestioned success, the chronic concern over the justice of the distribution of its rewards. Finally, I bring together what we can reasonably conjecture about the makeup of the world economy in 2030.”

NY. Penguin. 2007. 561p.