2 chapters across the catalog
Listener Seth Peterson recommends the book *White Trash* by Nancy Eisenberg, which details how the British elite viewed poor settlers in the Americas as "waste" or a "subspecies." The book explores the history of the "mud-eaters" and how class-based eugenics existed long before modern racial theories. The hosts note that this source is already slated for a future deep dive on the show.
Professor Nancy Eisenberg explains that the term "white trash" evolved from British colonial ideas of "waste people" who were dumped in the New World. Historically, landless white men were viewed as a surplus population. This class distinction was central to the founding of colonies like Georgia and Australia, which served as penal outposts for the British "idle poor."
