Fifty-two million people left Europe between 1840 and 1914. Among them were 300,000 Danes. “The Dream of America” chronicles the hardships and successes of Danish immigrants to America. It is based on the “Drømmen om America” exhibition created by the Danish National Museum and Moesgaard Museum in 1984-85. The book covers the social, political, economic and cultural backgrounds of emigration, the push-pull factors, the Atlantic crossing, arrival in the New World and assimilation. The sixteen chapters include such titles as “Why Did They Leave?,” “The Denmark They Left” and “Divided Hearts.” Among the authors are Kristian Hvidt, Stig Thornsohn, Jens Damm, Henrik B. Simonsen and John Mark Nielsen. The authors explain Denmark’s agrarian tradition and transition; the dream and reality of America; the first waves of Scandinavians settling in the Midwest, then into cities; die-hard Danishness vs. American assimilation; the Danish-American press; and cultural clashes and ethnic awareness; among other topics. The final chapter explains how the U.S. immigration quota system introduced in 1921 increased the number of Danish immigrants to Canada. From Thornsohn’s introduction: “Denmark did not experience extreme incidents of religious or political persecutions. and deportations, though we did have our share. And though we felt the crisis that hit Europe we never had a disaster like the Irish ‘potato famine’ of the 1840s. We were scarred by war, but only the loss of Slesvig in southern Denmark in 1864 was comparable to the bloodshed the soaked so many other countries. We did not send so many of our ‘wretched and poor,’ they simply could not afford it…. On the whole, Denmark probably sent more ‘middle class’ members than any other country.”