{"product_id":"white-trash-the-400year-untold-history-of-class-in-america","title":"White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe New York Times bestseller A New York Times Notable and Critics Top Book of 2016 Longlisted for the PEN\/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction One of NPRs 10 Best Books Of 2016 Faced Tough Topics Head On NPRs Book Concierge Guide To 2016s Great Reads San Francisco Chronicles Best of 2016: 100 recommended books A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2016 Globe \u0026amp; Mail 100 Best of 2016  Formidable and truth-dealing . . . necessary. The New York Times  This eye-opening investigation into our countrys entrenched social hierarchy is acutely relevant.O Magazine  In her groundbreaking bestselling history of the class system in America  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 embarrassingif occasionally entertainingpoor white trash.  When you turn an election into a three-ring circus  theres 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 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 todays hillbillies. 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 Americas supposedly class-free societywhere 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 LBJs 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 nations history. With Isenbergs landmark book  we will have to face the truth about the enduring  malevolent nature of class as well.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44945442865205,"sku":"ByrdShop_0670785970","price":27.02,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780670785971.jpg?v=1769889241","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/white-trash-the-400year-untold-history-of-class-in-america","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}