Laws Harsh As Tigers

“A tremendous contribution to our understanding of how legal alien residents gradually came to lose their constitutional rights in the United States.” — Western Legal History

“Brilliant, well-researched and well-written.” — Law and History Review

“Salyer’s fresh approach to the study of immigration law contributes a critical and vitalizing measure of complexity to a dimension of immigration history.” — American Journal of Legal History

“An elegantly written, well conceived book that makes an important contribution to the field.” — Pacific Historical Review

“This excellent book, carefully and thoroughly researched and engaginglywritten, represents some of the finest recent scholarship in the history of American law.” — American Historical Review

“This is an important study for American historians of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, especially those who focus upon the American West, immigration, nativism, ethnicity, and Asian Americans.” — Western Historical Quarterly

“This is an important, compellingly written, and exhaustively researched work on Chinese immigrants and the shaping of American immigration law.” — Journal of American History

“Meticulously researched and presented with nuance . . . . Those interested in immigration history and policy, Asian American studies, and administrative law will find it an important work.” — Political Science Quarterly

“At a time when immigration is again becoming a 'hot' issue, Lucy Salyer’s brilliant explication and analysis of how the now infamous Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 shaped and transformed American immigration law is doubly welcome, both as an analysis of hysteria past and as a warning about the dangers of overzealous administration. Laws Harsh as Tigers is an important work that all historians of race and ethnicity should read and ponder.” — Roger Daniels, University of Cincinnati

“Lucy Salyer offers a new reading of a critical chapter in the making of modern America with fresh material, thoughtful interpretations, and marvelous prose. Laws Harsh as Tigers is excellent immigration history, excellent social history, and excellent legal history. Its publication marks the emergence of a gifted young historical talent.” — Charles W. McCurdy, University of Virginia