All the Nations Under Heaven: An Ethnic and Racial History of New York City

In this general ethnic and racial history of the major U.S. immigrant gateway, New York City, two historians offer a competent overview focusing on ``the public sphere and patterns of settlement,'' not such things as family life. The first Dutch settlers, the authors note, bequeathed a vital tradition of ``broad toleration.'' The first immigrant wave, beginning in the 1790s, was spurred by domestic industrialization and by farm failures in Europe; the authors focus here on the Irish-poor and disdained-and the more prosperous Germans. Southern and Eastern Europe fueled the post-1880 immigrant influx; Binder and Reimers look at the Jews, who prospered more via commerce than by education, and the close-knit Italians. The authors then survey the changing roles of institutions such as government and labor unions during the Depression to observe how new opportunities, combined with progressive legislation, improved the lives of immigrants after WWII. Since 1970, New York City's influx of immigrants now comes from non-European countries. Despite the ensuing racial and ethnic tensions, the authors conclude-a bit cursorily-the city can still forge ahead. Both are professors of history, Binder at the College of Staten Island, Reimers at New York University. (May)