The history of White people

Summary: Historian Painter centers her momentous study of racial classification on the slave trade and the nation-building efforts which dominated the United States in the 18th century, when thinkers led by Ralph Waldo Emerson strove to explain the rapid progress of America within the context of white superiority. Her research is filled with frequent, startling realizations about how tenuous and temporary our racial classifications really are.

Record details

ISBN: 9780393049343 (hardcover) :
ISBN: 0393049345 (hardcover)
Physical Description: print
xii, 496 p. : ill., maps ; 24 cm.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: New York, NY : W.W. Norton, c2010.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references (p. [401]-456) and index.

Formatted Contents Note:

1. Greeks and Scythians -- 2. Romans, Celts, Gauls, and Germani -- 3. White Slavery -- 4. White Slavery as Beauty Ideal -- 5. White Beauty Ideal as Science -- 6. Johann Friedrich Blumenbach Names White People "Caucasian" -- 7. Germaine de Stael's German Lessons -- 8. Early American White People Observed -- 9. First Alien Wave -- 10. Education of Ralph Waldo Emerson -- 11. English Traits -- 12. Emerson in the History of American White People -- 13. American School of Anthropology -- 14. Second Enlargement of American Whiteness -- 15. William Z. Ripley and The Races of Europe -- 16. Frank Boas, Dissenter -- 17. Roosevelt, Ross, and Race Suicide -- 18. Discovery of Degenerate Families -- 19. From Degenerate Families to Sterilization -- 20. Intelligence Testing of New Immigrants -- 21. Great Unrest -- 22. Melting Pot a Failure? -- 23. Anthroposociology: The Science of Alien Races -- 24. Refuting Racial Science -- 25. New White Race Politics -- 26. Third Enlargement of American Whiteness -- 27. Black Nationalism and White Ethnics -- 28. Fourth Enlargement of American Whiteness.