preview

Walter Nugent's Crossings: The Great Transatlantic Migration

Better Essays

The late 1800s through the early 1900s was a time in history where migration from across the Atlantic was booming. This was a period where there was little, if any, government restriction about migration and there was new innovative technology making travel faster, easier, and cheaper than it has ever been before. In his book “Crossings: The Great Transatlantic Migrations” Nugent tells more than the American story of transatlantic migration. He compares different groups of people who travelled to 4 countries who were receiving people during this period. Nugent used migration patterns of people to the U.S., Canada, Brazil, and Argentina. He compares the stories of migrants of Europe who went to all 4 of these countries and demonstrates how different …show more content…

He has obtained a A.B. from St. Benedict's College in 1954 in History, a M.A. from Georgetown University in 1956 in European History, and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1961 in American History. He specialized in American West, US Gilded Age/Progressive Era, comparative immigration. A few of his recent publications are "Habits of Empire: A History of American Expansion" (2008), "Progressivism: A Very Short Introduction" (2010), Making Our Way: A Family History (2003), Into the West: The Story of Its People (1999), and Crossings: The Great Transatlantic Migrations, 1870-1914 (1992, 1995). As a professor of History, with his focus of research of including the Gilded Age and comparative immigration, Nugent is extremely qualified to write a book covering this material. Nugent uses over 400 different sources to write this book. Approximately 63 of them were primary sources that ranged from the US, to Germany and Brazil. His use of primary sources from different countries, considering the content of the book, makes this a creditable and interesting read. He utilizes the use of several maps and charts as well, making the image he was trying to paint with words and numbers easier to follow. Both his primary and secondary sources varied in type. He used books, studies, historic journals, economic journals, studies done on immigration and even government statistics. With Nugent’s extensive …show more content…

In the first 37 pages, he talks about the migration aspects of the Atlantic in the later part of the 19th century. It is in this first section that Nugent tells the reader about his plan for the rest of the book. On page 4 Nugent is talking about why he wrote another book about the same material that has been covered several times over the years, here he explains his purpose by writing “The answer is that much of that collection [of migration books already written] consists of writing about a single migrating group rather than about many or all of them.” This lays out Nugent’s main goal for this book and later in this section he explains how he plans to reach his goal. In the second section, Nugent examines migration patterns of people in nine different major countries. He uses this section to demonstrate the central theme of the book by giving the audience the migration patterns of other countries not just those of the US. He breaks this section down by country and that makes it easier to follow and understand. This would also make the book easier to reference. These chapters explain migration patterns of these different countries giving the reader the ability to compare them across different regions. This part is perfectly placed to set up the 3rd and final part. In this part, Nugent dives into the 4 biggest immigration receiving nations of the time and their role in migration. This section of the book is broken

Get Access