Chasing the American Dream

The Untold History of American Migrations and the Changing Shape of the United States

Michael Barone (View Bio)
Crown, 2013

From the time of the American Revolution, the United States has grown from a confederation of colonies of 3 million people to a transcontinental nation of 303 million. There has been nothing comparable to this in the rest of the world. We are accustomed to taking America’s growth for granted and to suppose that it was a slow, steady process. But examination of the data shows that America did not grow slowly and steadily, but rather that it has been peopled by several sudden surges of migration, in which very large numbers of immigrants have chosen to move to America or in which large masses of Americans have decided to move to other parts of the country. These surges of migration have sometimes been responses to economic incentives, but only sometimes; they have also been set in motion by spiritual and cultural motives. These surges of migration have been relatively brief, lasting just one or two generations and then subsiding. But they have left an indelible imprint behind. 

No one predicted the beginnings or ends of these surges. Economic incentives to migrate to America and within America have always existed since the colonial era; the United States has furnished greater economic opportunities than any other nation, and some parts of the country have always had higher wage levels than others. But while migrations have been responsive to economic conditions, and levels of migration have fluctuated in line with the movement of business cycles, something more has motivated these surges of migration—a desire to spread a way of life across the continent, a desire to escape from a disfavored position in a foreign country or in the American civic order, a desire to seek latitude for freedom of speech or the free exercise of religion. Michael Barone is writing the first book to examine all the demographically significant surges of migration, internal as well as immigrant, showing how they have, together and separately, shaped the America we live in today.