White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America
Nancy Isenberg · first published 2016 · ISBN 9780143129677
Isenberg traces American ideas about poor white people from colonial times to today. She shows that poverty wasn't accidental but designed, and that every era had words for the people who were deemed disposable. The book connects class hierarchy to land, labor, and how America was built.
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You cannot understand current inequality without historical context. Isenberg's reporting is scholarly but grounded, and she explains why poverty and class looked the way they did at each moment. It's not polemic, it's history.