About the Author

Nancy Isenberg is the author of Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr, which was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize in Biography and won the Oklahoma Book Award for best book in Nonfiction. She is the coauthor, with Andrew Burstein, of Madison and Jefferson. She is the T. Harry Williams Professor of American History at LSU, and writes regularly for Salon.com. Isenberg is the winner of the 2016 Walter & Lillian Lowenfels Criticism Award from the Before Columbus Foundation and was #4 on the 2016 Politico 50 list. She lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Charlottesville, Virginia.

Reviews

“Formidable and truth-dealing…necessary.” – The New York Times

“This eye-opening investigation into our country’s entrenched social hierarchy is acutely relevant.” –O Magazine

“A gritty and sprawling assault on…American mythmaking.” —Washington Post

“An eloquent synthesis of the country’s history of class stratification.” –The Boston Globe

“A bracing reminder of the persistent contempt for the white underclass.” –The Atlantic

“[White Trash] sheds bright light on a long history of demagogic national politicking, beginning with Jackson. It makes Donald Trump seem far less unprecedented than today’s pundits proclaim.”—Slate

“Isenberg . . . has written an important call for Americans to treat class with the same care that they now treat race…Her work may well help that focus lead to progress.” —TIME 

“With her strong academic background and accessible voice, Isenberg takes pains to reveal classism’s deep-seated roots.”–Entertainment Weekly

“Carefully researched…deeply relevant.” –Christian Science Monitor