David Roediger is a distinguished historian whose scholarship delves into African American studies and the intricate tapestry of American history. His work critically examines deeply rooted racial identities and immigrant experiences, often focusing on the perspectives of white laborers. Roediger's approach is marked by a keen analysis of labor history and radicalism, drawing connections between seemingly disparate fields like poetry and surrealism. Through his extensive research, he offers profound insights into the formation of American society and its complex racial and class dynamics.
Combining classical Marxism, psychoanalysis and the labor history pioneered by E P Thompson and Herbert Gutman, this book provides a study of the formative years of working-class racism in the United States. It surveys scholarship on whiteness, and discusses the changing face of labor in the twenty-first century.
A fierce, historically informed polemic against the idea that the middle class is the key to US greatness, past and future.