Historian Painter centers her momentous study of racial classification on the slave trade and the nation-building efforts which dominated the United States in the 18th century, when thinkers led by Ralph Waldo Emerson strove to explain the rapid progress of America within the context of white superiority. Her research is filled with frequent, startling realizations about how tenuous and temporary our racial classifications really are.

Greeks and Scythians -- Romans, Celts, Gauls, and Germani -- White slavery -- White slavery as beauty ideal -- The White beauty ideal as science -- Johann Friedrich Blumenbach names White people "Caucasian" -- Germaine de Staël's German lessons -- Early American White people observed -- The first alien wave -- The education of Ralph Waldo Emerson -- English traits -- Emerson in the history of American White people -- The American school of anthropology -- The second enlargement of American whiteness -- William Z. Ripley and The races of Europe -- Franz Boas, dissenter -- Roosevelt, Ross, and race suicide -- The discovery of degenerate families -- From degenerate families to sterilization -- Intelligence testing of new immigrants -- The great unrest -- The melting pot a failure? -- Anthroposociology : the science of alien races -- Refuting racial science -- A new White race politics -- The third enlargement of American whiteness -- Black nationalism and White ethnics -- The fourth enlargement of American whiteness.