The History of White People |  | Author: Nell Irvin Painter
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
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Rating:  19 reviews
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1St Edition
Pages: 496
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.6
ISBN: 0393049345
Dewey Decimal Number: 305.800973
EAN: 9780393049343
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Product Description
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.
Our story begins in Greek and Roman antiquity, where the concept of race did not exist, only geography and the opportunity to conquer and enslave others. Not until the eighteenth century did an obsession with whiteness flourish, with the German invention of the notion of Caucasian beauty. This theory made northern Europeans into “Saxons,” “Anglo-Saxons,” and “Teutons,” envisioned as uniquely handsome natural rulers.
Here was a worldview congenial to northern Europeans bent on empire. There followed an explosion of theories of race, now focusing on racial temperament as well as skin color. Spread by such intellectuals as Madame de Stael and Thomas Carlyle, white race theory soon reached North America with a vengeance. Its chief spokesman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, did the most to label Anglo-Saxons—icons of beauty and virtue—as the only true Americans. It was an ideal that excluded not only blacks but also all ethnic groups not of Protestant, northern European background. The Irish and Native Americans were out and, later, so were the Chinese, Jews, Italians, Slavs, and Greeks—all deemed racially alien. Did immigrations threaten the very existence of America? Americans were assumed to be white, but who among poor immigrants could become truly American? A tortured and convoluted series of scientific explorations developed—theories intended to keep Anglo-Saxons at the top: the ever-popular measurement of skulls, the powerful eugenics movement, and highly biased intelligence tests—all designed to keep working people out and down.
As Painter reveals, power—supported by economics, science, and politics—continued to drive exclusionary notions of whiteness until, deep into the twentieth century, political realities enlarged the category of truly American.
A story filled with towering historical figures, The History of White People forcefully reminds us that the concept of one white race is a recent invention. The meaning, importance, and realty of this all-too-human thesis of race have buckled under the weight of a long and rich unfolding of events. 70 illustrations
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 19
 Undoubtedly provocative and intense insight into the deeper meanings of race and identity March 16, 2010
Todd Bartholomew (Atlanta, GA USA)
145 out of 169 found this review helpful
At first blush readers may be a bit off-put at a black woman writing a history of white people and the usual questions are likely to arise. But as a historian it is Nell Irvin Painter's job to transcend identities such as race and gender and to remain objective about her subject matter. There are many compelling arguments about the relative pros and cons of writing about a part of your identity or about an identity other than your own. Those arguments aside, Painter sets an ambitious goal of writing a history on the construct of the white race; the who, what, where, when, why and how of its origins, its evolution and change over time, and its greater societal significance and meaning to our present day and age. Rather than an angry diatribe against racism Painter seeks to provide a narrative of the evolution of white identity.
Painter begins in antiquity, a time in which race was not important so much as place; where you were from, a time of social hierarchy and class more so than racial consciousness. The disturbing truth is that class served more to define one's status and place than ethnicity or race for many centuries. Slavery, the great sin of any age, was racially colorblind in antiquity, and even in colonial America it was initially colorblind if indentured servitude is included. Painter guides readers through the evolution and construct of whiteness leading up to the harsh realities of the 19th Century, a time where whiteness took on further nuances, differences, and distinctions owing to increased immigration. It was a time when the Irish, Italians, Jews, and "others" were denigrated for their otherness; for not fitting the Anglo-Saxon ideal of whiteness. These ideas and concepts linger in American consciousness and inform public policy and public opinion for nearly a century, resulting in some of the most egregious sins of the republic, including the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, the exclusion of Asians from immigration, anti-Semitism and more. By the time of the Civil Rights Movement whites felt increasingly under attack, becoming the "other" in their own society. If Malcolm X and James Brown could exhort blacks to proclaim "Say it loud! I'm black and proud!" then why couldn't whites revel in their own racial pride? And here's where it gets interesting. Painter's argument is that a nation, founded by slaveholders with justification for its class system based upon the inherent inferiority of black people a foundational belief, must reach some form of reassessment of what it should be once slavery has ended. That process has hot yet fully occurred in the United States and until such a time remains unfinished business for us to move forward.
The end result is thought-provoking, certainly controversial, and more into the realm of history of ideas than most lay people will be comfortable with. Many will undoubtedly be offended by what Painter has to say, but her point is not to provide a hagiography of a race, but to examine the larger meanings of what race is, what it means, and how it shapes us as a people and a society. The results are meant to be unsettling and to initiate further thought, contemplation and introspection. To that end Painter succeeds wonderfully. This is meant to be a challenging and polarizing book and quite honestly those who make it through will be rewarded for it. Undoubtedly many will find points to contend and debate, but they will miss the larger argument.
Perspective March 26, 2010
S. Davis (San Francisco, CA)
64 out of 83 found this review helpful
It is very interesting to me that the fact that the author is Black gives readers pause or prompts a question as to "why" she is writing about white people. Haven't white people (educators or otherwise) been writing about people of color throughout our history. No one ever seems to question their ability to articulate their research or the validity of their perspective.
Superb Book June 20, 2010
Howard Jones (San Diego, CA United States)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
When looking obliquely at a stand of row-trees, you see a random grouping, a forest, dark and shaded from the sun. When you walk around and view them from new angles, the form materializes and the light shines down the open rows. Such it is with "The History of White People."
The book was well written, extensively researched, thought provoking and enlightening. Painter was almost completely successful in keeping her biases from soiling the book, probably more successful than most readers will be in interpreting the material she presents.
Civilization has been built on the backs of subjugated peoples many of which have been white. The "lower races" of the past have been Celts, Italians, and countless others that are now part of the American mainstream. Painter puts that reality into perspective and helps her readers to take a step back and evaluate their relationships and belief systems as they exist in the 21st century.
My wife and I read extensively and have come up with our own rating system of sorts. When one of us finishes a book, we tell the other it was either (1) a waste of time and better used in a trash container, (2) a book of value, but worthy of only a detailed verbal book report and summary or (3) an extremely valuable read to which justice can't be done verbally, i.e., a "must read yourself".
My wife is now reading "The History of White People," Nell Irvin Painter's excellent book.
How Race Began May 16, 2010
John D. Cofield
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
The History of White People is an ironic title because, as Nell Irvin Painter ably demonstrates here, "whiteness" is a term subject to many interpretations through the centuries. Beginning with the Greeks and Romans and continuing to the present, Painter analyzes the attitudes held by master peoples towards those whom they subjugated, enslaved, or at least considered themselves to be dominant over in some form.
The book's best sections deal with the development of racial attitudes in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when Europeans, seeing themselves newly dominant over the rest of the world, attempted to find some biological rationale for their preeminence. Painter's descriptions of the bizarre "scientific" theories dealing with hair texture, skull sizes and shapes, height, and so on would be laughably absurd if those same theories had not led to the development of eugenics in the late nineteenth century. In turn eugenics in the twentieth century led to forceable sterilization of the "unfit" and other horrors, culminating in the Holocaust.
Painter writes well, with an occasional wry grimace and shake of the head. Her last chapter is one of the best, for here she gives a summary of the current state of "whiteness" in a world where DNA analysis and the mapping of the human genome have so muddied the waters that one wishes J.F. Blumenbach, William Z. Ripley, and other "scientists" who tried so hard to identify one race as superior to all others could be alive to see their work brought to naught.
Excellent research May 10, 2010
Ms. Lisa L. Hardiman (Great Falls, Montana USA)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Great research that is enlightening on the racial issues of United States and Europe. This is a cultural foundation of this country.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 19
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