DOC Immigration: From the Founding of Virginia to the Closing of Ellis Island (Eyewitness History) by Dennis Wepman in History

Description

Around the year 1000 a Viking ship landed on the Atlantic coast of what would one day be North America. Nearly a millennium later; on June 7; 1945; Norway’s King Haakon VII returned from exile under guard of the American Ninety-ninth—or “Viking”—Battalion. In Vikings across the Atlantic; Daron W. Olson reveals how these two moments form narrative poles for the vision of a Greater Norway that expanded the boundaries of the Norwegian nation.Looking at matters of religion; literature; media; and ethnicity; Olson explores how Norwegian Americans’ myths about themselves changed over time in relation to a broader Anglo-American culture; while at the same time influencing and being influenced by the burgeoning national culture of their homeland. Beginning in the 1920s; homeland Norwegian identity-makers framed the concept of the Greater Norway; which viewed the Norwegian nation as having two halves: Norwegians who resided in the homeland and those who had emigrated from Norway; especially those in America. Far from being merely symbolic; this idea; Olson shows; was actually tested by the ordeal of World War II; when Norwegians the world over demonstrated their willingness to sacrifice and even die for the Greater Norway.In its transnational approach; Olson’s book brings a new perspective to immigrant studies and theories of nationalism; Vikings across the Atlantic depicts the nation as a larger community in which membership is constructed or imagined; a status of belonging defined not by physical proximity but through qualities such as culture and shared traditions.