(p. 11) . . . , Isenberg — a historian at Louisiana State University whose previous books include a biography of Aaron Burr — provides a cultural history of changing concepts of class and inferiority. She argues that British colonizers saw their North American empire as a place to dump their human waste: the idle, indigent and criminal. Richard Hakluyt the younger, one of the many colorful characters who fill these pages, saw the continent as “one giant workhouse,” in Isenberg’s phrase, where the feckless poor could be turned into industrious drudges.
For the full review, see:
THOMAS J. SUGRUE. “‘Hicks’ and ‘Hayseeds’.” The New York Times Book Review (Sun., JUNE 26, 2016): 11.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date JUNE 24, 2016, and has the title “A Look at America’s Long and Troubled History of White Poverty.”)
The book under review, is:
Isenberg, Nancy. White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America. New York: Viking, 2016.