White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America - Hardcover

Nancy Isenberg

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670785970 ISBN 13: 9780670785971

Publisher: Viking, 2016

Synopsis

This estimable book rides into the summer doldrums like rural electrification. . . . It deals in the truths that matter. - Dwight Garner, "The New York Times"
"White Trash" will change the way we think about our past and present.
T. J. Stiles, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Custer s Trials
"In her groundbreaking history of the class system in America, what the "New York Times" hails as "formidable and truth-dealing, Nancy Isenberg takes on our comforting myths about equality, uncovering the crucial legacy of the ever-present, always embarrassing if occasionally entertaining poor white trash.
When you turn an election into a three-ring circus, there s always a chance that the dancing bear will win, says Isenberg of the political climate surrounding Sarah Palin. And we recognize how right she is today. Yet the voters boosting Trump have been a permanent part of our American fabric, argues Isenberg.
The wretched and landless poor have existed from the time of the earliest British colonial settlement. They were alternately known as waste people, offals, rubbish, lazy lubbers, and crackers. By the 1850s, the downtrodden included so-called clay eaters and sandhillers, known for prematurely aged children distinguished by their yellowish skin, ragged clothing, and listless minds.
Surveying political rhetoric and policy, popular literature and scientific theories over four hundred years, Isenberg upends assumptions about America s supposedly class-free society where liberty and hard work were meant to ensure real social mobility. Poor whites were central to the rise of the Republican Party in the early nineteenth century, and the Civil War itself was fought over class issues nearly as much as it was fought over slavery. Reconstruction pitted poor white trash against newly freed slaves, which factored in the rise of eugenics -a widely popular movement embraced by Theodore Roosevelt that targeted poor whites for sterilization. These poor were at the heart of New Deal reforms and LBJ s Great Society; they haunt us in reality TV shows like "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo "and "Duck Dynasty. "Marginalized as a class, white trash have always been at or near the center of major political debates over the character of the American identity.
""
We acknowledge racial injustice as an ugly stain on our nation s history. With Isenberg s landmark book, we will have to face the truth about the enduring, malevolent nature of class as well."

About this title

Review:

"As Isenberg shows, anxieties about the white underclass have been at the heart of our history. Instead of revisiting the story of American inequality through slavery, she considers the problem of white poverty. Standard histories of the American spirit use a hardscrabble past to anticipate our glorious present, but Isenberg takes every opportunity to mottle that picture." --The New Yorker

"[Isenberg] has written an eloquent volume that is more discomforting and more necessary than a semitrailer filled with new biographies of the founding fathers and the most beloved presidents...This estimable book rides into the summer doldrums like rural electrification." - Dwight Garner, The New York Times

&quotAn eloquent synthesis of the country s history of class stratification, one that questions whether the United States is indeed a place where all are created equal. White Trash powerfully unites four centuries of history economic, political, cultural, and pseudo-scientific to show how thoroughly the notion of class is woven into the national fabric." - The Boston Globe

"[White Trash] sheds bright light on a long history of demagogic national politicking, beginning with Jackson. It makes Donald Trump seem far less unprecedented than today s pundits proclaim." Slate

&quotHere is a book that should forever change the way we think and talk about class, which Isenberg suggests is the rotting stage upon which American democracy will either stand or fall." The American Scholar

&quotA rigorously researched study of the entrenched system of racial classification that dispels many myths about American national identity. In this impressive work of social history, Isenberg challenges head-on America s fable of class denial. ...From the eugenics movement to the rise of the proud redneck, Isenberg portrays a very real and significant history of class privilege in the United States. A riveting thesis supported by staggering research." Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

&quotMeticulous... White Trash is a history of class, a history of race, and a morality tale about the dangers of othering...Isenberg makes clear that no matter how othering occurs, it s a central theme of American history and all the ugly bits we want to ignore in order to perpetuate the myth of a great, classless and fair society. But while that narrative has always been the goal, it has never been the reality." LitHub.com

&quotIsenberg s expertise particularly shines in the examinations of early America, and every chapter is riveting." --Publisher's Weekly (boxed, starred review)

"Isenberg's history is a bracing reminder of the persistent contempt for the white underclass." --The Atlantic

Book Description:

The New York Times bestseller

A ground-breaking history of the class system in America, which challenges popular myths about equality in the land of opportunity.

About this edition

• Publisher: Viking
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0670785970
• ISBN 13: 9780670785971
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 480