Starred review from February 26, 2024
This brilliant compendium by Princeton University historian Painter (The History of White People) brings together previously published writings on American history, politics, and whiteness from throughout her career. Several pieces explore the legacy of slavery, including a 2000 introduction to Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl in which Painter argues that the 1861 autobiography’s descriptions of sexual abuse at the hands of Jacobs’s master made the book one of the first to address the gendered impact of slavery. Decades-old selections remain insightful and timely. For instance, contemporary debates over school history curricula echo in a 1982 essay exploring how white scholars’ opposition to studies celebrating Black resistance have led to racist textbook portrayals of Black people as dependent on whites. Drawing illuminating historical parallels to the present, the 2022 essay “From 1872 to 1876 in the Space of One Year” likens the post–George Floyd racial reckoning to the promise of Reconstruction, but warns that calls for Democrats to “jettison voting rights in order to court White voters without college degrees” risks repeating the tragedy of the “Redemption” era, which rolled back Black civil rights starting in the late 1870s. Razor-sharp analysis lights up every page, and the bountiful images of multimedia artwork by Painter add a personal touch. This affirms Painter’s reputation as a historian and political commentator par excellence. Photos. Agent: Sarah Chalfant, Wylie.
March 1, 2024
The distinguished academic offers astute perspectives on America, past and present. Painter, author of Old in Art School and The History of White People, gathers more than 40 previously published essays, framed by a new introduction and coda, reflecting her shrewd analyses of issues including race, class, and gender; history and historiography; police brutality and poverty; art, education, and politics. Painter, who grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area in a family of "proud progressives," was part of a diverse student body at UC Berkeley. "My Blackness isn't broken," she writes. "It faces a different way. Mine is a Blackness of solidarity, a community, a connectedness to other people who aren't known personally, of seeing myself as part of other people, other Black people." Her connectedness has led her to reveal "real hurt, real blood, real trauma" in her writing, whether debunking the mythology surrounding Sojourner Truth, examining the way Spike Lee reinvented Malcolm X for his movie, or uncovering the stereotypes that undermined Anita Hill. Some pieces assess the work of other historians--e.g., she critiques Eric Foner's Reconstruction, a book she otherwise admires, for "its virtual neglect of gender." Gender and class are central to Painter's portrayal of Mary Quinn Sullivan, the youngest and least-known founder of the Museum of Modern Art. Throughout, Painter confronts divisive questions, such as affirmative action and reparations, about which she has this suggestion: "First every Black person should have his or her own therapist for life, because dealing with this society is enough to make you crazy. Second, every White person should have to live two months as Black." The author has many significant thoughts about the 2016 election, which colorized voting as Black, and about the future of democracy. Painter complements her essays with her artwork. A vibrant, insightful collection from an indispensable voice.
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