This book established Madison Grant as an authority in racial thought. Its success laid the groundwork for the emerging science of eugenics, and was widely read by Us presidents, scientists and became a popular best-seller in its day. It was a call to American whites to counter the dangers both from non-white and non-North Western European immigration. Unashamedly Nordicist in outlook, Grant used history and anthropology to argue against an open-door immigration policy, which, he said, would lead to the destruction of the founding American population. "We Americans must realize that the altruistic ideals which have controlled our social development during the past century . . . are sweeping the nation toward a racial abyss. If the Melting Pot is allowed to boil without control, the type of native American of Colonial descent will become as extinct as the Athenian of the age of Pericles, and the Viking of the days of Rollo." This hand-edited reproduction contains the complete original text, tables and maps.