Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I was super excited about the release of this book; I've been a fan of the PBS "People Like Us" movie for a very long time. A lot of the narrative in the U.S. tends to focus on race, overlooking elements of class that exist and have some pretty strong historical roots. This is a good read, it's a great read if you're someone who is faintly familiar with ideas in sociology or in general about class struggle. It's a sociology/history book, so may not be as mainstream as people would like. What's nice is that this particular author actually articulates the ideas some have come across in sociology/history regarding class and puts those often underlying murmurs of class struggle into historical context, along with supporting ideas and accounts. It ties in some of the ideas of the Founding Fathers, especially as it pertains to Thomas Paine and variations and distinctions between the land-holding and non, as property is often tied to wealth. The author starts out in discussing the elements of Protestant Work Ethic and the reverberations of that in the U.S. The author does a great job of going through the different evolutions of the idea of "white trash" especially as it pertains to the name and variations of the name. There is also the element of how the imagery of white trash changes over the years; such as mountain folk or those in Kentucky, or those who grow corn. It's relatively an always evolving term as explained by the author. The author takes the reader through the present day, and links it back to the civil war and to the revolutionary war. All and all, a great book and a quick read that I enjoyed. This is a history narrative, meaning I don't really know where some of the reviews dog it for being "political." It takes the reader through the evolution of the term white trash, it looks at variations of white trash and how it is portrayed, how it comes to be viewed in the U.S., it's a term that has had some unique applications and has been crossed applied to various groups throughout the U.S.'s history. The citations are well done, lots of primary sources and clear links to where the author is drawing conclusions from. The author also focuses on the term in both the north and south, albeit after the Civil War it becomes more concentrated within the southern region. The author also stays pretty focused on her niche, which makes it a compact and enjoyable read.