Interdisciplinary and transnational in scope, this book analyzes an array of state theories, literary figures, religious apparatuses, cultural artifacts, and political movements to demonstrate how the Irish not only fitted into, but also helped to form, the US racial state. "O'Neill has produced an incisive work, well researched and theoretically informed. This is a book that raises important questions about the nature of Irish migration to, and assimilation in, the American racial state." - Aidan Beatty, Wayne State University "...a valuable contribution to the fields of Irish and American studies. It addresses important issues and offers new insights. Moreover, it is impressive in its scope: O'Neill discusses a wide variety of primary sources, including newspaper articles, illustrations, legislative texts, plays, poetry and literature. Each chapter is supported by a substantial amount of references and an ample bibliography and O'Neill succeeds in tying all these sources together in a coherent and astute manner." - Lindsay Janssen, English Studies "Famine Irish and the American Racial State is an imaginative and timely study of Irish assimilation in the United States in the ninteenth and early twentieth centuries." - Christopher Cusack, HAN Univeristy of Applied Sciences