Immigration and Apocalypse

Named one of “Fifteen Important Theology Books of 2024” by Englewood Review of Books

“Brilliantly unsettling, Immigration and Apocalypse definitively establishes the significance of the New Testament’s closing book to the entrenchment of American white supremacy. Ranging from ancient Mediterranean and early Christian studies to U.S. immigration history, Lin’s book challenges us to divest from the murderous romance of apocalyptic exceptionalism—before it is too late.”—Dan-el Padilla Peralta, author of Undocumented: A Dominican Boy’s Odyssey from a Homeless Shelter to the Ivy League and Divine Institutions: Religions and Community in the Middle Roman Republic

“A must-read for our times, this deeply original book excavates the legacies of the Book of Revelation in shaping dominant U.S. imaginations around immigration with particular attention to discourses of disease, citizenship, and the border wall.”—Jacqueline M. Hidalgo, author of Latina/o/x Studies and Biblical Studies

“Once you have read this groundbreaking book, you will not see either American immigration policy or the book of Revelation in the same way. Any conversation about immigration in America that aims to be helpful must now start with Immigration and Apocalypse.”—Willie James Jennings, Yale University

“Yii-Jan Lin creatively and astutely uses the Book of Revelation to read U.S. immigration history, highlighting how Revelation’s New Jerusalem has functioned as a founding myth to establish and reinforce an American sentiment of exceptionalism.”—Tat-siong Benny Liew, College of the Holy Cross