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Nell Irvin Painter

Nell Irvin Painter is the award-winning author of many books, including Standing at Armageddon and The History of White People. She is the Edwards Professor of American History, Emerita, at Princeton University and lives in East Orange, New Jersey, and the Adirondacks.

Nell Irvin Painter

Books by Nell Irvin Painter

Standing at Armageddon: A Grassroots History of the Progressive Era
Nell Irvin Painter
Paperback, 2008
"A consistently engrossing, occasionally irreverent, always smoothly written history of America's painful entry into the modern age."—Kirkus Reviews
Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol
Nell Irvin Painter
Paperback, 1998
A monumental biography of one of the most important black women of the nineteenth century.
The History of White People
Nell Irvin Painter
Paperback, 2011
A New York Times Bestseller

This terrific new book…[explores] the ‘notion of whiteness,’ an idea as dangerous as it is seductive." —Boston Globe
Standing at Armageddon: A Grassroots History of the Progressive Era
Nell Irvin Painter
E Book, 2011
“A gripping and forceful narrative.”—Nancy F. Cott, author of Public Vows

An “enthralling” (Michael Kazin, Washington Post) account of America’s shift from a rural and agrarian society to an urban...
The History of White People
Nell Irvin Painter
E Book, 2011
A New York Times Bestseller

This terrific new book…[explores] the ‘notion of whiteness,’ an idea as dangerous as it is seductive." —Boston Globe
Exodusters: Black Migration to Kansas After Reconstruction
Nell Irvin Painter
Paperback, 1992
"The first full-length scholarly study of this migration and of the forces that produced it."—David H. Donald, New York Times Book Review
The History of White People
Nell Irvin Painter
Hardback, 2010
A mind-expanding and myth-destroying exploration of notions of white race—not merely a skin color but also a signal of power, prestige, and beauty to be withheld and granted selectively
Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol
Nell Irvin Painter
E Book, 2018
“A triumph of scholarly maturity, imagination, and narrative art.”—Arnold Rampersad
Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol
Nell Irvin Painter
Paperback, 2024
“A triumph of scholarly maturity, imagination, and narrative art.”—Arnold Rampersad
The Narrative of Hosea Hudson: The Life and Times of a Black Radical
Hosea Hudson, Nell Irvin Painter, Nell Irvin Painter
Paperback, 1994
"[A] marvelous book. Moving, fearful, and funny, Hudson and Painter’s Narrative is as valuable an American life as has ever been wrested from anonymity." —Benita Eisler, The Nation