Kristofer Allerfeldt – författare

In 1924 America passed legislation that effectively outlined which immigrants were to be considered beneficial to the national body and which were not. Albert Johnson, a Washington State Congressman, sponsored the Act. This study examines the role of the Pacific Northwest in the change of national sentiment that led up to this legislation. Throughout the period, this region experienced massive growth in its immigrant population. Its forests and small towns were the scenes of many clashes with the alien radicals, resulting in the creation of anti-Catholic legislation and the laws against land ownership by the Japanese. Analyzing issues of race, religion, and political radicalism, Allerfeldt determines that the region was highly influential in the national debate.Most immigration studies of this era focus on the East Coast or on California, but Allerfeldt finds that Northwestern politicians and populists, responding to regional events as much as national sentiments, often set the national immigration agenda. Diverse organizations such as the APA, the Ku Klux Klan, and the IWW gained powerful local support and had significant influence on the region's attitudes towards immigrants. Rather than following California's lead in the opposition to Asian immigration, the Northwest actually set the path for its southern neighbor in many important aspects.

In Crime and the Rise of Modern America, Kristofer Allerfeldt studies the crimes, criminals, and law enforcement that contributed to a uniquely American system of crime and punishment from the end of the Civil War to the eve of World War II to understand how the rapidly-changing technology of transportation, media, and incarceration affected the criminal underworld.In ten thematic chapters, Crime and the Rise of Modern America turns to the outlaws of the iconic West and the illegal distilleries of Prohibition, the turn-of-the-century immigrants, and the conmen who preyed on the people of the Promised Land, to examine how crime and America both changed, defining each other.

In Crime and the Rise of Modern America, Kristofer Allerfeldt studies the crimes, criminals, and law enforcement that contributed to a uniquely American system of crime and punishment from the end of the Civil War to the eve of World War II to understand how the rapidly-changing technology of transportation, media, and incarceration affected the criminal underworld.In ten thematic chapters, Crime and the Rise of Modern America turns to the outlaws of the iconic West and the illegal distilleries of Prohibition, the turn-of-the-century immigrants, and the conmen who preyed on the people of the Promised Land, to examine how crime and America both changed, defining each other.

Few periods in American history have been explored as much as the Progressive Era. It is seen as the birth-place of modern American liberalism, as well as the time in which America emerged as an imperial power. Historians and other scholars have struggled to explain the contradictions of this period and this volume explores some of the major controversies this exciting period has inspired. Investigating subjects as diverse as conservation, socialism, or the importance of women in the reform movements, this volume looks at the lasting impact of this productive, yet ultimately frustrated, generation's legacy on American and world history.

This approachable volume uncovers the often-hidden history behind the persistence and resilience of modern slavery in the United States, tracing its evolution from the forced labour on nineteenth-century plantations to today’s hidden global networks of coercion, exploitation and human trafficking.In the period leading up to our modern era, Americans participated in, and profited from, the enslavement of African men and women, Native American children, Chinese peasants, Polynesian islanders, American sailors, and teenage girls from Asia and Eastern Europe. Historical in approach, American Slavery Since Abolition explores the evolution of distinctly modern forms of exploitation such as the Prison Industrial Complex, the gig economy, enslavement by the algorithm, cloning and organ theft. Engaging with concepts of agency and coercion, wage slavery and economic inequality, the book unravels how old systems of domination seem to have been continuously reshaped and reinvigorated by new technologies, requiring ever-expanding supply chains. It shows how these encourage exploitation, despite near-continuous efforts to abolish the repulsive trade in human misery, and in doing so, exposes the troubling ways in which the modern USA, and most other economies, continue to participate in, and depend on, unfree labour.Lucid and unsettling, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of American history, politics, sociology and American studies.

This approachable volume uncovers the often-hidden history behind the persistence and resilience of modern slavery in the United States, tracing its evolution from the forced labour on nineteenth-century plantations to today’s hidden global networks of coercion, exploitation and human trafficking.In the period leading up to our modern era, Americans participated in, and profited from, the enslavement of African men and women, Native American children, Chinese peasants, Polynesian islanders, American sailors, and teenage girls from Asia and Eastern Europe. Historical in approach, American Slavery Since Abolition explores the evolution of distinctly modern forms of exploitation such as the Prison Industrial Complex, the gig economy, enslavement by the algorithm, cloning and organ theft. Engaging with concepts of agency and coercion, wage slavery and economic inequality, the book unravels how old systems of domination seem to have been continuously reshaped and reinvigorated by new technologies, requiring ever-expanding supply chains. It shows how these encourage exploitation, despite near-continuous efforts to abolish the repulsive trade in human misery, and in doing so, exposes the troubling ways in which the modern USA, and most other economies, continue to participate in, and depend on, unfree labour.Lucid and unsettling, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of American history, politics, sociology and American studies.

Few periods in American history have been explored as much as the Progressive Era. It is seen as the birth-place of modern American liberalism, as well as the time in which America emerged as an imperial power. Historians and other scholars have struggled to explain the contradictions of this period and this volume explores some of the major controversies this exciting period has inspired. Investigating subjects as diverse as conservation, socialism, or the importance of women in the reform movements, this volume looks at the lasting impact of this productive, yet ultimately frustrated, generation's legacy on American and world history.

Why do Americans alternately celebrate and condemn gangsters, outlaws and corrupt politicians? Why do they immortalize Al Capone while forgetting his more successful contemporaries George Remus or Roy Olmstead? Why are some public figures repudiated for their connections to the mob while others gain celebrity status?Drawing on historical accounts, the author analyzes the public's understanding of organized crime and questions some of our most deeply held assumptions about crime and its role in society.

For the past 150 years, the Ku Klux Klan has murdered and tortured its way through US history. By reputation it is one of the most notorious and ultra-violent terrorist groups in the world; even today the Klan occasionally rears its ugly, trademarked, hooded head. But the truth is that it has been in terminal decline since the 1960s – and the myth is now far more dangerous than the reality.From its Civil War origins as an insurgency in the defeated South, the Klan became a mass movement in the 1920s and a byword for bigotry and racism in the civil rights era. Since then, however, its numbers have fallen; yet it remains a potent symbol of white supremacist terror in our polarised world. Drawing on twenty years of primary research, The Ku Klux Klan: An American History seeks to demystify one of the most hated, feared and poorly understood organisations in history.