Book excerpt: Winner, Silver Medal, California Book Awards—Commonwealth Club of California With a foreword by William DeverellThe Indispensable Enemy examines the anti-Chinese confrontation on the Pacific Coast as it was experienced and rationalized by the white majority. Focusing on the Democratic party and the labor movement of California through the forty-year period after the Civil War, Alexander Saxton explores aspects of the Jacksonian background which proves crucial to an understanding of what occurred in California. The Indispensable Enemy looks beyond the turn of the 19th century to trace results of the sequence of events in the West for the labor movement as a whole, influencing events that led to the crystallization of an American concept of national identity. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1996. Winner, Silver Medal, California Book Awards—Commonwealth Club of California With a foreword by William DeverellThe Indispensable Enemy examines the anti-Chinese confrontation on the Pacific Coast as it was experienced and rationalized by the white majori