254
PARTISAN REVIEW
grounds. But what Mr. Handlin has sacrificed in variety and detail
he has regained in the solidity of his conception.
The peasant in Europe was a member of a tightly knit com–
munity whose life was securely framed by tradition. Emigrants came
chiefly from the masses that were uprooted when the growth of
population and the commercialization of agriculture brought an up–
heaval to the villages. The physical trials of the Atlantic passage and
the hardships of resettlement and earning a new living provide Mr.
Handlin with a background for the story that interests him most:
the psychic impact of the dissolution of community bonds, the be–
wilderment in an impersonal and alien culture of people accustomed
to interpret every problem within the framework of a personal tradi–
tion, the disastrous consequences for patriarchal families of economic–
ally humbled husbands and fathers, the corrosive effects of attempts
to become Americanized, the dissolution of understanding between
couples whose familiar social roles were distorted by new conditions,
the inevitable breach between generations as the Americanized young
moved out of their parents' orbit. All this Mr. Handlin treats with
sensitivity, and although many of his findings will be familiar to
those who are acquainted with Thomas and Znaniecki's
Polish Peasant
in Europe and America,
I do not know of any work that explores so
thoroughly the texture of the immigrant experience during the first
and second generations. The book is suggestive for the study of our
national character, insofar as it is immigrant-derived, as well as our
politics and literature. I was particularly impressed with Handlin's
treatment of the imperfect absorption of the tradition-directed and
apolitical peasant into American urban politics and with his insight
into the impact of Yankee common-school readers and maiden Yankee
schoolteachers on immigrant children.
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