Whether or not Trump wins in November, his campaign has energized many of the people about whom Isenberg writes: the white working class, especially those who live on the economic margins, often–but not exclusively–in the proverbial hinterlands. Its author, Louisiana State University history professor Nancy Isenberg, hit the market at a propitious time: during the Donald Trump political tsunami. Every now and then, however, a book appears that truly is “important.” Such a work is White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America (New York: Viking, 2016). We often mean, simply, a work that advances some argument within our narrow specialty-not a book we could actually teach, or one that undergraduates would find provocative. I’m guilty of being one of those scholars who too glibly use the words “important book” in reviews and academic discussions.
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