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

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

The New York Times bestseller
A New York Times Notable and Criticsâ€™ Top Book of 2016
Longlisted for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction
One of NPR's 10 Best Books Of 2016 Faced Tough Topics Head On
NPR's Book Concierge Guide To 2016â€™s Great Reads
San Francisco Chronicle's Best of 2016: 100 recommended books
A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2016
Globe & Mail 100 Best of 2016

â€œFormidable and truth-dealing . . . necessary.â€Â â€”The New York Times

â€œThis eye-opening investigation into our countryâ€™s entrenched social hierarchy is acutely relevant.â€ â€”O Magazine

In her groundbreakingÂ bestselling history of the class system in America,Â Nancy Isenberg upends history as we know it by taking on our comforting myths about equality and uncovering the crucial legacy of the ever-present, always embarrassingâ€”if occasionally entertainingâ€”poor white trash.
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â€œWhen you turn an election into a three-ring circus, thereâ€™s always a chance that the dancing bear will win,â€ says Isenberg of the political climate surrounding Sarah Palin. And we recognize how right she is today. Yet the voters who boosted Trump all the way to the White House 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 to today's hillbillies. They were alternately known as â€œwaste people,â€ â€œoffals,â€ â€œrubbish,â€ â€œlazy lubbers,â€ and â€œcrackers.â€ By the 1850s, the downtrodden included so-called â€œclay eatersâ€ and â€œsandhillers,â€ known for prematurely aged children distinguished by their yellowish skin, ragged clothing, and listless minds.
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Surveying political rhetoric and policy, popular literature and scientific theories over four hundred years, Isenberg upends assumptions about Americaâ€™s supposedly class-free societyâ€“â€“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 eugenicsâ€“-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 LBJâ€™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.
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We acknowledge racial injustice as an ugly stain on our nationâ€™s history. With Isenbergâ€™s landmark book, we will have to face the truth about the enduring, malevolent nature of class as well.
Country USA
Manufacturer Penguin Books
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2016-06-21
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Penguin Books
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2016-06-21
Format	Kindle eBook

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

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