The History of White PeopleA New York Times bestseller: “This terrific new book . . . [explores] the ‘notion of whiteness,’ an idea as dangerous as it is seductive.”—Boston Globe Telling perhaps the most important forgotten story in American history, eminent historian Nell Irvin Painter guides us through more than two thousand years of Western civilization, illuminating not only the invention of race but also the frequent praise of “whiteness” for economic, scientific, and political ends. A story filled with towering historical figures, The History of White People closes a huge gap in literature that has long focused on the non-white and forcefully reminds us that the concept of “race” is an all-too-human invention whose meaning, importance, and reality have changed as it has been driven by a long and rich history of events. |
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LibraryThing Review
User Review - xiaomarlo - LibraryThingIt isn't what I expected (I thought it would be a deeper deconstruction of what we perceive to be white, but it's more of an academic historical survey), but I certainly did learn a lot. My favourite ... Read full review
LibraryThing Review
User Review - DinadansFriend - LibraryThingThe history of the concept of “white People” is traced from Classical Times, when the “Top People” weren’t, strictly speaking, “White” down to relatively recent times. It is the story of the exponents ... Read full review
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African Americans Alpine Ameri Anglo-Saxon anthropologists appeared Beaumont beauty Black Sea Boas’s Brigham Britain British Caesar Cambridge Carlyle Catholic Caucasian Celtic Celts cephalic index Chapter Chardin Circassian Civil culture early eastern England English Traits Essay ethnic eugenics European figure Franz Boas French Gauls George German Gobineau Goddard Goethe Göttingen Harvard University Press Henry human Ibid idea immigrants Indians intellectual intelligence Irish Italian Jefferson Jewish Jews Johann Friedrich Blumenbach Journal Know-Nothing labor Lapouge living Madison Grant Meiners National native Negro nineteenth century Nordic northern Nott political poor popular Princeton published Races of Europe racial racist Ralph Waldo Emerson Ripley Ripley’s Robert Roman Roosevelt Ruth Benedict Saxon scholars scientific Scythians skin color skulls slave slavery Smith social society South southern Staël tests Teutonic theory Thomas tion Tocqueville twentieth century United Walker Western white race William William Z Winckelmann women Yerkes York
Bibliographic information
| Title | The History of White People |
| Author | Nell Irvin Painter |
| Publisher | W. W. Norton & Company, 2011 |
| ISBN | 039307949X, 9780393079494 |
| Length | 448 pages |
| Subjects | › History / Historiography |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |