American history is, in part, a history of immigration – of waves of people from other lands making their way to America's shores.

Immigration: How the Past Shapes the Present argues that the past is critical in understanding current immigration; that a new historical perspective offers important insights into what is happening today. Foner examines both the facts of immigration in the past and how they are perceived – the stories, myths, and memories that color how we think of immigration today and the politics that govern it. This new historical perspective helps us understand contemporary nativism, distinguishes what is new from long-established patterns, reveals how legacies of earlier immigration shape the lives of present-day arrivals, and offers a fresh look at what lies ahead.

The book is especially relevant at a time when immigration history is being made – on an almost daily basis – yet scholarship on today's immigration does not always consider the past. Drawing on a wealth of historical and contemporary research, the book makes a clear and powerful case for writing history into the study of contemporary immigration.