Handlin

Handlin died at his home in Cambridge, Mass., just two days before Texas Gov.

Al Eisele: Oscar Handlin's Message to Republicans Al Eisele 2011

It's unlikely that Perry or the other GOP other candidates are familiar with Handlin's ground-breaking book, or if they are, would buy his argument that immigration -- "more than the frontier experience, or any other episode in its past -- was the continuing, defining event of American history," as the Times obituary stated.

Al Eisele: Oscar Handlin's Message to Republicans Al Eisele 2011

Especially ironic, considering that the 95-year-old Handlin's best-known book, published more than a half century ago, "altered public perceptions about the role of immigration in the arc of American history," according to the New York Times.

Al Eisele: Oscar Handlin's Message to Republicans Al Eisele 2011

Handlin's book was Uprooted: The Epic Story of the Great Migrations That Made the American People, a 1952 definitive study of the dramatic impact of immigration on American life that won him a Pulitzer Prize.

Al Eisele: Oscar Handlin's Message to Republicans Al Eisele 2011

How ironic that we should read about the death of Harvard historian Oscar Handlin at the same time that Republican presidential hopefuls were beating each other up over the issue of immigration.

Al Eisele: Oscar Handlin's Message to Republicans Al Eisele 2011

How ironic that we should read about the death of Harvard historian Oscar Handlin at the same time that Republican presidential hopefuls were beating each other up over the issue of immigration.

Al Eisele: Oscar Handlin's Message to Republicans Al Eisele 2011

Handlin's book was Uprooted: The Epic Story of the Great Migrations That Made the American People, a 1952 definitive study of the dramatic impact of immigration on American life that won him a Pulitzer Prize.

Al Eisele: Oscar Handlin's Message to Republicans Al Eisele 2011

Especially ironic, considering that the 95-year-old Handlin's best-known book, published more than a half century ago, "altered public perceptions about the role of immigration in the arc of American history," according to the New York Times.

Al Eisele: Oscar Handlin's Message to Republicans Al Eisele 2011

Handlin died at his home in Cambridge, Mass., just two days before Texas Gov.

Al Eisele: Oscar Handlin's Message to Republicans Al Eisele 2011

Oscar Handlin didn't address that aspect of immigration in his book, but I have a feeling that he'd agree.

Al Eisele: Oscar Handlin's Message to Republicans Al Eisele 2011