White trash the 400-year untold history of class in America
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...
| Main Author: | Isenberg, Nancy (Author) |
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| Format: | Books Print Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
New York, New York :
Viking,
[2016]
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: |
Go to Downloadable eBook Here. |
| Summary: |
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. |
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| Physical Description: |
xvii, 460 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm |
| Bibliography: |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: |
0670785970 (hardback) 9780670785971 (hardback) |
| Author Notes: |
She is the author of Sex and Citizenship in Antebellum America; Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr (winner of the 2008 Oklahoma Book Award for non-fiction); Madison and Jefferson, co-authored with Andrew Burstein, was named one of the top five non-fiction titles of 2010 by Kirkus; and White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America, which is a 2016 New York Times Bestseller. She has been featured on C-SPAN2 "Book TV," and on various NPR programs. She and Andrew Burstein are regular contributors to Salon.com. (Bowker Author Biography) |