The history of population is fundamental to the understanding of changes in society. Nowhere is this truer than in the United States, which throughout its history has experienced vast changes in population movement, distribution, and composition. In Structures of American Social History Walter Nugent grapples with the "facts" of population and develops a new perspective on American history. Nugent demonstrates how population trends intertwine with social and economic history and with the values and beliefs of society. Historical patterns projected into the twenty-first century yield a somewhat startling conclusion: Nugent offers a view of the future that is far more sanguine than the views of those who see only doom and decline in "the graying of America."

The essays brought together in this volume represent some of the research activities carried on in three departments of the Faculty of Humanities at the Hebrew University – the Department of Comparative Literature, the Department of English, and the Department of Romance Studies. The essays seem to fall into a pattern, which outlines some of the main directions of development in literature from the Renaissance to modern times, as it evolved in the West in Europe and on the two American continents.