Caste Caste

Caste

The Origins of Our Discontents

    • 4.1 • 2.3K Ratings
    • $13.99
    • $13.99

Publisher Description

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • “An instant American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times

The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions.

#1 NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR: Time
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, O: The Oprah Magazine, NPR, Bloomberg, The Christian Science Monitor, New York Post, The New York Public Library, Fortune, Smithsonian Magazine, Marie Claire, Slate, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews


Winner of the Carl Sandberg Literary Award • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • National Book Award Longlist • National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist • Dayton Literary Peace Prize Finalist • PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction Finalist • PEN/Jean Stein Book Award Longlist • Kirkus Prize Finalist

“As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.”
 
In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched, and beautifully written narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings.
 
Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their outcasting of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.

Original and revealing, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of American life today.

GENRE
Nonfiction
RELEASED
2020
August 4
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
544
Pages
PUBLISHER
Random House Publishing Group
SELLER
Penguin Random House LLC
SIZE
4.2
MB

Customer Reviews

T. Dlomo ,

What an education.

This book is not for the heart that wants to live unchanged. Only reading with intellectual tentacles up and with humanity in mind will allow you to receive this beauty in its fullness. What an education.

JZnotthatJAYZ ,

Caste is ESSENTIAL

I was learning new things from the very first page. I couldn’t believe what I was reading because they never taught us this in school. So I’d google it and BAM! It was real. This book should be in every classroom in America to help us move forward. Great job Isabel!

agdavis1908 ,

Such an enlightening read about our history, even as a Black wkman

I thought I was educated about our history in this country, but I was floored to learn about everything from exactly how similar our nation is to the Indian caste system to the fact that our relationship with race isn’t much different than that is the nazis. Isabel’s writing is phenomenal and I also appreciated her personal perspectives about her time as a Black NYT writer.

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More Books by Isabel Wilkerson

The Warmth of Other Suns The Warmth of Other Suns
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Caste (Adapted for Young Adults) Caste (Adapted for Young Adults)
2022
Casta Casta
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Casta Casta
2021
Kasta Kasta
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Castas Castas
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