ABSTRACT
The chronological arrangement of this book has hopefully rendered the course of Irish-American history clearer than a strictly thematic analysis could have done. Nonetheless, the chronological approach has its pitfalls, not least of which is the tendency to impose on the past a greater narrative coherence than it could possibly have had, along with the related problem of teleology in which history is plotted as heading toward a pre-determined end. In the latter regard, the specter haunting the story told in these pages is that of social mobility and, through it, assimilation. Nineteenth-century Irish Americans were by and large poor, alienated and often despised; late twentieth-century Irish Americans are about as well-off, educated and Americanized as anybody else. Is the narrative of Irish-American history therefore one of uncomplicated progress, a tale of inevitable assimilation through social mobility? And, to the extent that the case of the Irish is exemplary of broader patterns in American historical development, what does the answer to this question imply about the history of other immigrant groups, past, present and future?
