Beginning with the origins of Western civilisation, Nell Irvin Painter traces the invention of the idea of a white race-often for economic, scientific and political ends. She shows how American identity in the eighteenth century was intrinsically tied to the elevation of white skin into the embodiment of beauty, power and intelligence; how American intellectuals insisted that only Anglo Saxons were truly American and how the definitions of who is "white" and who is "American" have evolved over time. A story filled with towering historical figures, The History of White People closes a gap in a literature that has long focused on the non-white and it reminds us that the concept of "race" is a human invention whose meaning, importance and reality have changed according to a long and rich history.