Review - American Jewish Archives

Book Reviews 201
Binder, Frederick M., and David M. Reimers.
All the Nations Under Heaven:
An Ethnic and Racial History of New York City.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1995.353 pages.
In A11 the Nations Under Heaven, Frederick M. Binder and David M.
Reimers pay tribute to New York's long-standing tradition of ethnic
and racial diversity. Citing the lack of a comprehensive study of the
ethnic and racial history of the city, the authors set out to provide an
overview of the development of the pluralism that has become the
city's defining characteristic. In nine chapters they sketch the his-
tory of the successive immigrant groups that have populated the
city, adapted to its environment and opportunities, and, in the
process, transformed their own cultures as well as the city itself.
Following a well-known periodization, the authors distinguish
between pre-Revolutionary "old" (1789--1880) and "new" irnrnigra-
tion (1880 to World War I) and divide the post World War II era into
two periods, from 1945 until 1970 and from 1970 to the present.
While they pay particular attention to the dominant immigrant
groups within each period, they continue to follow the trajectories of
earlier arrivals. Thus, while the last chapter focuses on the "newest"
immigrants, specifically those of Caribbean and Asian origin, it
also charts the continued upward mobility of ethnic groups of
European descent and notes the racial divide that increasingly
characterizes the city's social, economic, and cultural infrastruc-
ture.
Adding layer after layer, the richness of the city's accumulated
ethnic pasts is gradually revealed. But what distinguishes this book
from other ethnic histories of New York is the perspective it offers on
the dynamics of interethnic relations and, in particular, on ethnic
and racial conflict. Prejudice based on religious, national, and racial
differences has continued to demarcate the limits of the tradition of
tolerance and pluralism on which the city prides itself.
New York's diversity has been the product of a complex set of
contingencies. Its foundations, Binder and Reimers argue, were first
laid under Dutch colonial rule. For the Dutch West India Company,