The author says the idea of race is not just a matter of biology but also includes "concepts of labor, gender, class, and images of personal beauty".

[7][8][9] Eugenics became a widely discussed issue and was embraced to some extent by many prominent people including Theodore Roosevelt[10] and David Starr Jordan.

[15] Professor of English Paul Devlin, writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, said the book "is perhaps the definitive story of a most curious adjective.

It is a scholarly, non-polemical masterpiece of broad historical synthesis, combining political, scientific, economic and cultural history.

"[16] Historian Linda Gordon, writing in The New York Times, says the book "has much to teach everyone, including whiteness experts, but it is accessible and breezy, its coverage broad and therefore necessarily superficial."

[7] Editor Thomas Rogers in Salon calls it an "exhaustive and fascinating new look at the history of the idea of the white race".