Listen free for 30 days
Listen with offer
-
Flight of the WASP
- The Rise, Fall, and Future of America's Original Ruling Class
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 17 hrs and 13 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
£0.00 for first 30 days
Buy Now for £17.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Summary
For decades, writers have proclaimed the diminishment of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, who for generations were the dominant socio-cultural-political force in America. While the WASP elite has, in the last half century, indeed drifted from American centrality to the periphery, its relevance and impact remain, as Michael Gross reveals in his compelling chronicle.
From Colonial America's founding settlements through the Gilded Age to the present day, Gross traces the complex legacy of American WASPs through the lives of fifteen influential individuals and their very privileged, sometimes intermarried families. As the clans progress, prosper, and periodically stumble, defining aspects in the four-century sweep of American history emerge: our wide, oft-contentious religious diversity; the deep scars of slavery, genocide, and intolerance; the creation and sometime misuse of astonishing economic and political power; an instinct to offset inequity with philanthropy; an equal capacity for irresponsible, sometimes wanton, behavior.
In previous acclaimed books such as 740 Park and Rogues' Gallery, Gross has explored elite culture in microcosm; expanding the canvas, Flight of the WASP chronicles it across four centuries and fifteen generations in an ambitious and consequential contribution to American history.