Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: New Books in American Politics
Episode: Yii-Jan Lin, "Immigration and Apocalypse: How the Book of Revelation Shaped American Immigration" (Yale UP, 2024)
Description: The metaphor of New Jerusalem has long been used to justify dueling narratives of America as the land of freedom with open gates and the walled city closed to all except those whose names are written in the book of life. In Immigration and Apocalypse: How the Book of Revelation Shaped American Immigration (Yale University Press, 2024), Yii Jan Lin explores the idea of America as the New Jerusalem from early European exploration and colonization; through the waves of Chinese immigration and exclusion; the open gates envisioned by Ronald Reagan in his Farewell Address; and the present day rhetoric about...