In the final volume of this set, Marcus deals with the coming and challenge of the East European Jews from 1852 to 1920.

In United States Jewry, 1776-1985, the dean of American Jewish historians, Jacob Rader Marcus, unfolds the history of Jewish immigration, segregation, and integration; of Jewry's cultural exclusiveness and assimilation; of its internal division and indivisible unity; and of its role in the making of America. Characterized by Marcus's impeccable scholarship, meticulous documentation, and readable style, this landmark four-volume set completes the history Marcus began in The Colonial American Jew, 1492-1776.

In the fourth and final volume of this set, Marcus deals with the coming and challenge of the East European Jews from 1852 to 1920. He explores settlement and colonization, dispersal to rural areas, life in large cities, the proletarians, the garment industry, the unions, and socialism. He also describes the life of the middle and upper class East European Jew. Special attention is paid to the growth of Zionism. In the epilogue, Marcus writes about the evolution of the "American Jew."