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White Trash
- The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 14 hrs and 26 mins
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Publisher's summary
The 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 NPR's 10 Best Books Of 2016 Faced Tough Topics Head On
NPR's Book Concierge Guide To 2016’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
“Formidable and truth-dealing . . . necessary.”—The New York Times
“This eye-opening investigation into our country’s 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 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 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 “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.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In Inhuman Bondage, David Brion Davis sums up a lifetime of insight. He looks at slavery in the American South; the rise of the Cotton Kingdom; the daily life of slaves; the destructive internal long-distance slave trade; the sexual exploitation of slaves; the emergence of an African-American culture; and much more. A definitive history by a writer deeply immersed in the subject, Inhuman Bondage links together the profits of slavery, the pain of the enslaved, and the legacy of racism.
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Very Useful Contribution
- By Biggar Thomas on 06-14-08
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A History of the American People
- By: Paul Johnson
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 48 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Johnson's monumental history of the United States, from the first settlers to the Clinton administration, covers every aspect of American culture: politics, business, art, literature, science, society and customs, complex traditions, and religious beliefs. The story is told in terms of the men and women who shaped and led the nation and the ordinary people who collectively created its unique character.
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A British conservative's view of American history.
- By Mike From Mesa on 06-17-09
By: Paul Johnson
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A Different Mirror
- A History of Multicultural America
- By: Ronald Takaki
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 18 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Upon its first publication, A Different Mirror was hailed by critics and academics everywhere as a dramatic new retelling of our nation's past. Beginning with the colonization of the New World, it recounts the history of America in the voice of the non-Anglo peoples of the United States---Native Americans, African Americans, Jews, Irish Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos, and others---groups who helped create this country's rich mosaic culture.
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All mirrors distort
- By Michael on 04-02-17
By: Ronald Takaki
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No More Lies
- By: Dick Gregory
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In 1972, during the Black Power Movement, iconoclast Dick Gregory challenged one of the foundations of America itself - its history, which had been written almost exclusively from the white male perspective. In No More Lies, this true trailblazer gave voice to African Americans, speaking their truth about the past and race relations in the United States. No More Lies offers this incomparable satirist’s intellectual, conspiratorial, and humorous spin on the facts.
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My Hertiages
- By n/a on 11-25-22
By: Dick Gregory
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The Strange Career of William Ellis
- The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire
- By: Karl Jacoby
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
To his contemporaries in Gilded Age Manhattan, Guillermo Eliseo was a fantastically wealthy Mexican, the proud owner of a luxury apartment overlooking Central Park, a busy Wall Street office, and scores of mines and haciendas in Mexico. But for all his obvious riches and his elegant appearance, Eliseo was also the possessor of a devastating secret: He was not, in fact, from Mexico at all. Rather, he had begun life as a slave named William Ellis, born on a cotton plantation in Texas during the waning years of King Cotton.
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Fascinating Tale of Racial Passing
- By Steven Schuster on 06-10-16
By: Karl Jacoby
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An African American and Latinx History of the United States
- By: Paul Ortiz
- Narrated by: J. D. Jackson
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Spanning more than 200 years, An African American and Latinx History of the United States is a revolutionary, politically charged narrative history arguing that the "Global South" was crucial to the development of America as we know it. Ortiz challenges the notion of westward progress, and shows how placing African American, Latinx, and Indigenous voices unapologetically front and center transforms American history into the story of the working class organizing against imperialism.
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I had to return
- By Andrew Alvarez on 05-19-20
By: Paul Ortiz
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A Renegade History of the United States
- By: Thaddeus Russell
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 16 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
American history was driven by clashes between those interested in preserving social order and those more interested in pursuing their own desires---the "respectable" versus the "degenerate", the moral versus the immoral. The more that "bad" people existed, resisted, and won, the greater was our common good. In A Renegade History of the United States, Russell introduces us to the origins of our nation's identity as we have never known them before.
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One of those books...that cause brain freeze!
- By Rory on 07-19-13
By: Thaddeus Russell
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An Imperfect God
- George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America
- By: Henry Wiencek
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Abridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Washington was born and raised among Blacks and mixed-race people; he and his wife had blood ties to the slave community. Yet as a young man he bought and sold slaves without scruple, even raffled off children to collect debts (an incident ignored by earlier biographers). Then, on the Revolutionary battlefields where he commanded both Black and White troops, Washington's attitudes began to change.
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Excellent handling of one part of Wahington's life
- By buffaloboy on 05-20-04
By: Henry Wiencek
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The History of White People
- By: Nell Irvin Painter
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 14 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A mind-expanding and myth-destroying exploration of notions of white race—not merely a skin color but also a signal of power, prestige, and beauty to be withheld and granted selectively. Ever since the Enlightenment, race theory and its inevitable partner, racism, have followed a crooked road, constructed by dominant peoples to justify their domination of others. Filling a huge gap in historical literature that long focused on the non-white, eminent historian Nell Irvin Painter guides us through more than two thousand years of Western civilization, tracing not only the invention of the idea of race but also the frequent worship of “whiteness” for economic, social, scientific, and political ends.
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Destroys the myth that race is about skin color
- By Emily L. on 08-25-14
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The 10 Big Lies About America
- Combating Destructive Distortions About Our Nation
- By: Michael Medved
- Narrated by: Michael Medved
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In this bold and brilliantly argued book, acclaimed author and talk-radio host Michael Medved zeroes in on 10 of the biggest fallacies that millions of Americans believe about our country - in spite of incontrovertible facts to the contrary. In The 10 Big Lies About America, Medved pinpoints the most pernicious pieces of America-bashing disinformation that pollute current debates about the economy, race, religion in politics, the Iraq war, and other contentious issues.
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Truth
- By Dominique Bessette on 01-23-17
By: Michael Medved
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America Aflame
- How the Civil War Created a Nation
- By: David Goldfield
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 27 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In this spellbinding new history, David Goldfield offers the first major new interpretation of the Civil War era since James M. McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom. Where past scholars have interpreted the war as a triumph of freedom, Goldfield sees it as America's greatest failure: the result of a breakdown caused by the infusion of evangelical religion into the public sphere.
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Great and indepth
- By Kindle Customer on 06-02-14
By: David Goldfield
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The War Before the War
- Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America's Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War
- By: Andrew Delbanco
- Narrated by: Ari Fliakos
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
For decades after its founding, America was really two nations—one slave, one free. There were many reasons why this composite nation ultimately broke apart, but the fact that enslaved black people repeatedly risked their lives to flee their masters in the South in search of freedom in the North proved that the "united" states was actually a lie. Fugitive slaves exposed the contradiction between the myth that slavery was a benign institution and the reality that a nation based on the principle of human equality was in fact a prison-house in which millions of Americans had no rights.
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Great promise greater disappointment
- By Amazon Customer on 12-09-18
By: Andrew Delbanco
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Master of the Mountain
- Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves
- By: Henry Wiencek
- Narrated by: Brian Holsopple
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Is there anything new to say about Thomas Jefferson and slavery? The answer is a resounding yes. Henry Wiencek's eloquent, persuasive book - based on new information coming from archaeological work at Monticello and on hitherto overlooked or disregarded evidence in Jefferson's papers - opens up a huge, poorly understood dimension of Jefferson's world. We must, Wiencek suggests, follow the money.
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Clear, Insightful & Iconclastic History
- By R.S. on 04-18-13
By: Henry Wiencek
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As Ferguson, Missouri, erupted in August 2014 and media commentators across the ideological spectrum referred to the angry response of African Americans as 'Black rage', historian Carol Anderson wrote a remarkable op-ed in the Washington Post showing that this was, instead, 'white rage at work. With so much attention on the flames,' she wrote, 'everyone had ignored the kindling.'
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The Secret Token
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In 1587, 115 men, women, and children arrived at Roanoke Island on the coast of North Carolina to establish the first English settlement in the New World. But when the new colony's leader returned to Roanoke from a resupply mission, his settlers had vanished, leaving behind only a single clue - a "secret token" etched into a tree. What happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke? That question has consumed historians, archeologists, and amateur sleuths for 400 years. In The Secret Token, Andrew Lawler sets out on a quest to determine the fate of the settlers.
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trying to capitalize on race relations
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What listeners say about White Trash
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Charly
- 10-13-24
The best
The middle has a voice always in these writings. A gift to the generations behind us.
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- Mary Karty
- 11-10-23
A must read for anyone wanting to understand how we ended up so divided.
“White Trash” is a well researched and well told story of how England tried to get rid of its “refuse” people four hundred years ago and American policy and politics have been punishing and profiting off the poor ever since.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Annemarie Walsh
- 06-11-24
The system still lives on
Informative facts that rip the bandaid off. Needs to be converted to a mini series so more people can become aware of how the system works and begin to look to what has and has not worked to chart a course going forward
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1 person found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 08-10-24
Class identify is a powerful thing
I loved the in depth look at different kind of white people and their struggle for class identity, thought out the ages. I also appreciate that this book didn't look down on the waste people of America but empathized with their choices and attitudes.
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- James W. Hoffpauir
- 08-26-23
I have lived this experience and failed badly.
I was a freshman in high school when my school became the second integrated high school in the state of Louisiana and the only integrated school in my parish for six years.
The black students chosen to attend to this school were top academic students. The first year three seniors, then to as many as 49 percent of my graduating class of 1969.
We went to the oldest but, by then, least privileged school in the city. There weren't more than five or six altercations in the second and third years between the races. But it became obvious to both raced that we were looked down upon and despised by the white community elsewhere in the city. We soon learned to count upon one another at all inter-school events. By graduation time I had as many black friends as white.
In fact, us whites were accepted and treated well in the black community - something which I have experienced throughout the remainder of my 72 years to-date. And in other cultures - sometimes being the only American in the group for days on end.
I found that college proved to be a similar situation. While whites had to adjust to the experience of integration, I had no issues. This was noticed by blacks, whites, and professors.
Later, in the professional world I met with, and befriended black professionals. As we progressed up "the professional ladder" it became apparent to me that those black - as well as white professionals - had lost touch with the less fortunate of their own races.
I discussed my feelings of what we had done with a group of black and white colleagues on several occasions. We thought through the topic as a group and individually over a period of weeks. None of us having come from the privileged class, we soon understood what had taken place.
We also discussed how many of the people. both black and white, that "we left behind" had began to act as crackers, rednecks, and homies - looking for someone to blame and look down upon for their lack of upward mobility. Whether that be race, nationality, or regional in difference.
I thank you profusely for offering this study of human nature to the attention of the masses. Sadly though, I feel it will fall upon deaf ears all over again.
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- Rachel M.
- 06-02-24
Interesting look at class history
Isenberg makes some very good points but I’d like to see her take the next logical step. She talks about how white trash people have always been a part of America, but she doesn’t really go into the reality that without the “white trash”, the American dream couldn’t exist. If the wealthy patrician types were not able to demonstrate that there was someone less than the more middle classes, the lore of the American dream would fall apart and the people would be less malleable politically. The conceit that upward mobility exists in any meaningful way is one of the main reasons our current tax structure and political structure exist.
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- Robert E. Johnson Jr.
- 05-08-23
Thought provoking
Nancy’s book is very well written. The subjects covered required wandering through a number of what I would normally think of as unrelated subjects. However, she tied them together well. One error: LBJ didn’t defeat Pappy O’Daniel in the Texas US Senate race.
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- Donna Deal
- 04-03-24
Like a car crash- you can't look away
This is a stunning triumph of history, sociology and human endurance. The author's research and scholarship is flawless: she relies on primary documents to make her case, knitting together personal stories and political decisions that reverberate even today. This is an eye-opening narrative of the true history of our country, blasting away the myths of America being 'classless society,' and the 'work ethic.' Even from the very beginning of the Jamestown settlement, people were divided, condemned as not being 'good enough' and relegated to the trash heap. The author moves quickly from the past to the present... this is a book that should be read, must be read and the lessons within must not be disregarded. Much of the unrest and the current divisions in our country can be explain here. Don't look for our current trumpian chaos here, this was published in 2016, but you will find all rationale for his fervent, mislead followers.
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- Beverly Williams
- 09-03-23
An eye opener !
It kept my attention for sure!we have not changed much in 400 years. so sad.
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- Rosalyn Mendez
- 03-12-24
The actual analysis of race identity in America in the 21st Century
If you enjoyed Isabel Wilkersons "Caste, The Orogons of our Discontents, or the other masterpiece written by Thomas Sowell "Black Rednecks and White Liberals", you will absolutely love the insight and facts in this amazing book! It deep dives regarding how the English sent their unwanted to America, and unknowingly created the most powerful nation of immigrants the world has ever seen. 🇺🇸 A must read for every American!
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3 people found this helpful