“If this book accomplishes anything,” writes author Nancy Isenberg in the epilogue of her book, “it will be to have exposed a number of myths about the American dream, to have disabused readers of the notion that upward mobility is a function of the Founders’ ingenious plan, or that Jacksonian democracy was liberating, or that the Confederacy was about state’s rights rather than preserving class and racial distinction.”

Isenberg pulls upon prodigious sources to fortify her debunking march through American ideology. While the forward thesis of this book - that class not only exists in America, but is the true root of inequality - was something that I already agreed with and knew some information about, I appreciated the authors’ survey-like collection of primary sources from the colonies to the late 2000s to support this assertion. Even with knowing the underlying perspective, reading the words of those who flagrantly revealed their hatred for their “inferiors” is shocking. I have no doubt, however, that the rich still feel this way, even if they are too afraid to say it so flagrantly.

This book is something I wish all white people read, especially those in my income bracket and lower. The war on the poor has always existed in varying forms, and the intent of the elite is to divide the people so as to prevent class consciousness. The repeated attacks on things like government assistance programs and the myth of welfare queens and more continue to serve as weapons to encourage people to not advocate for themselves and not see the humanity in their fellow man. As Isenberg says, “government assistance is said to ‘undermine the American Dream’. Wait. Undermine whose American Dream?”

Class defines how real people live. They dont live the myth; they don’t live the dream. Politics is always about more than what is stated, or what looms before the eye; even when it is denied, politicians engage in class issues. Today as well, we have a large, unbalanced electorate that is regularly convinced to vote against its’ collective self-interest. These people are told that east-coast college professors brainwash the young, and that Hollywood liberals make fun of them and have nothing in common with them, and hate America, and wish to impose an abhorrent, godless lifestyle. The deceivers offer the same laden message that the majority of southern whites heard when secession was being weighed. Moved by the need for control, for an unchallenged top tier, the power elite in American history has thrived by placating the vulnerable and creating for them a false sense of identification, denying real class differences wherever possible.