The class labeled “white trash” has been politically potent, regularly becoming an electoral base for those skilled at harnessing its resentment, and regularly used as a pawn for protecting the interests of those with wealth and power.

Throughout American history, “white trash” has denoted not just an economic class, but a cultural identity-derided by some, embraced by others, often “ on the traits (and allure) of an ethnic heritage.”.

Politically, the pendulum has swung from seeking elimination of this human trash, exporting them (as Britain did, when it used its colonies as a place to ship its poor) and sterilizing them (as eugenics promoted and, briefly, as laws in many states allowed), to seeking rehabilitation through the alleviation of poverty (with the TVA a shining example for Isenberg).America (and Britain before it) has always seen some impoverished people as hopeless (“incapable of becoming part of the mainstream society”), and thus as human waste.Rather, it is a book that wants the reader to understand how marginalizing and stereotyping this group has been a part of American history since the founding. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy or Arlie Hochschild’s Strangers in the Their Own Land, wants the reader to understand poor white people, or that chides the Democratic party for alienating them. Nancy Isenberg sets out to trace the idea of “white trash” in America from the 17 th to the 21 st century, chronicling how American culture and politics have been colored by the persistent categorization of some people into a particular recognizable category-the category variously labeled “white trash,” “trailer trash,” “rednecks,” “hillbillies,” “crackers” and “mudsills.” This is not a book that, like J.D.

Nancy isenberg books