Best 8 quotes of Nancy Isenberg on MyQuotes

Every era in the continent's vaunted developmental story had its own taxonomy of waste people-unwanted and unsalvageable. Each era had its own means of distancing its version of white trash from the mainstream ideal.

For most Americans of the eighteenth century, it was assumed impossible for a servant to shed his lowly origins; the meaner sort, as one newspaper insisted, could never “wash out the stain of servility.” There were fears that the meaner sort were treading too close on the heels of those above them.

More than any other colonial founder, Oglethorpe made himself one of the people, promoting collective effort.

This is why Paine was careful to downplay the distinction between the rich and the poor. He wanted his American readers to focus on distant kings, not local grandees. He wanted them to break with the Crown, not to disturb the class order.

We cling to the comfort of a middle class, forgetting that there can't be a middle class without a lower.

We need to stop thinking that some Americans are the real Americans, the deserving, the talented, the most patriotic and hardworking, while other can be dismissed as less deserving of the American dream.

What separates history from myth is that history takes in the whole picture, whereas myth averts our eyes from the truth when it turns men into heroes and gods.

When you turn an election into a three-ring circus, there’s always a chance that the dancing bear will win.