Introduction: Fables we forget by

Part I: To begin the world anew. Taking out the trash : waste people in the New World ; John Locke's Lubberland : the settlements of Carolina and Georgia ; Benjamin Franklin's American breed : the demographics of mediocrity ; Thomas Jefferson's rubbish : a curious topography of class ; Andrew Jackson's cracker country : the squatter as common man

Part II: Degeneration of the American breed. Pedigree and poor white trash : bad blood, half-breeds and clay-eaters ; Cowards, poltroons, and mudsills : Civil war as class warfare ; Thoroughbreds and scalawags : bloodlines and bastard stock in the age of eugenics ; Forgotten men and poor folk : downward mobility and the Great Depression ; The cult of the country boy : Elvis Presley, Andy Griffith, and LBJ's Great Society

Part III: The white trash makeover. Redneck roots : Deliverance, Billy Beer, and Tammy Faye ; Outing rednecks : slumming, Slick Willie, and Sarah Palin ; America's strange breed : the long legacy of white trash.