The History of White People

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 [became] 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. (Mar.)