The History of White People

December 14, 2009
Who are white people and where did they come from? Elementary questions with elusive, contradictory, and complicated answers set historian Painter’s inquiry into motion. From notions of whiteness in Greek literature to the changing nature of “white” identity ”in direct response to Malcolm X and his black power successors,” Painter’s wide-ranging response is a who’s who of racial thinkers and a synoptic guide to their work. Her commodious history of an idea accommodates Caesar; Saint Patrick, “history’s most famous British slave of the early medieval period”; Madame de Staël; and Emerson, “the philosopher king of American white race theory.” Painter (Sojourner Truth
) reviews the diverse cast in their intellectual milieus, linking them to one another across time and language barriers. Conceptions of beauty (“ideals of white beauty firmly embedded in the science of race”), social science research, and persistent North/South stereotypes prove relevant to defining whiteness. “What we can see,” the author observes, “depends heavily on what our culture has trained us to look for.” For the variable, changing, and often capricious definition of whiteness, Painter offers a kaleidoscopic lens.

Starred review from February 15, 2010
Painter is the author of Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol (1996) and several other scholarly works on the history of slavery and race relations in America, most recently Creating Black Americans (2006). Her latest selection examines the history of whiteness as a racial category and rhetorical weapon: who is considered to be white, who is not, what such distinctions mean, and how notions of whiteness have morphed over time in response to shifting demographics, aesthetic tastes, and political exigencies. After a brief look at how the ancients conceptualized the differences between European peoples, Painter focuses primarily on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. There, the artistic idealization of beautiful white slaves from the Caucasus combined with German Romantic racial theories and lots of spurious science to construct an ideology of white superiority which, picked up by Ralph Waldo Emerson and other race-obsessed American intellectuals, quickly became an essential component of the nations uniquely racialized discourse about who could be considered an American. Presenting vivid psychological portraits of Emerson and dozens of other figures variously famous and obscure, and carefully mapping the links between them, Painters narrative succeeds as an engaging and sophisticated intellectual history, as well as an eloquent reminder of the fluidity (and perhaps futility) of racial categories.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)

January 15, 2010
Turning the question, "What does it mean to be black?" on its head, historian Painter (American history, emerita, Princeton Univ.; "Creating Black Americans") asks, "What does it mean to be white?" and, "Where did the idea of whiteness come from?" Digging down deep into source material dating from 400 B.C.E. to the present, Painter locates the etymology of terms like "Caucasian" and "Anglo-Saxon" and reveals surprising factsfor instance, that ancient literature does not classify peoples based on skin color, that living in slavery is not a unique experience to those of African descent, and that early Irish American immigrants were not automatically considered white. Although Painter's comprehensive style makes this a hefty tome that can, at times, read like an attempt to out racist thinkers from history, the narrative is ultimately intriguing and well researched. VERDICT This is an important addition to the nascent academic field of whiteness studies, which examines the social construction of whiteness with particular attention to the American experience. It should be read by all historians and anyone with an interest in cultural studies. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 11/1/09.]April Younglove, Rochester Regional Lib. Council, NY

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