Beyond the Huddled Masses: American Immigration and the Treaty of Versailles

This book takes a close look at the connection between the results of the Paris Peace Conference and the Immigration Acts of 1921 and 1924. Kristofer Allerfeldt identifies the threads of nativism, anti-Bolshevism, self-determination and fear that ran through America's participation in the Paris Peace Conference and then manifested themselves openly through the Immigration Acts. He taps into the early twentieth century American psyche to explore the rationalization for the extreme policies of isolationism that so characterized the inter-war years in the United States.