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To the brownstone born: WASPS, by Michael Knox Beran, reviewed

4 September 2021

9:00 AM

4 September 2021

9:00 AM

WASPS: The Splendors and Miseries of an American Aristocracy Michael Knox Beran

Pegasus Books, pp.416, 22

It was only in 1948 that the term WASP was coined — by a Florida folklorist, Stetson Kennedy. Yet White Anglo-Saxon Protestant never satisfactorily defined this all-but-extinct breed of American Brahmin. In his sweeping, teeming study of the WASP, Michael Knox Beran concedes that the acronym fumbles its origins. For one thing, it excludes the Celts and Anglo-Dutch Patroons, several of whom lent gravitas and grit to the term and tribe.

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