Caste The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

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Caste The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

Author: ایزابل ویلکرسون (Isabel Wilkerson)

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 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 out-cast 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.

Beautifully written, 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.

[highlight color=”green”]Goodreads users review :[/highlight]

One of the most important books of this year, tackling the issue of race, caste, class and prejudice, giving insight into how a caste society is built, how it functions and how it shapes an individual. For me it was eye-opening and mind-blowing at times, a reading experience that greatly appreciated. A big thank-you to Isabel Wilkerson, Penguin Press UK, and NetGalley for arc in exchange for my honest review.* Beata                                                                                                     rated it: 5.0 from 5.0

A masterful, infuriating, heartbreaking book! Wilkinson argues (and illustrates beautifully with dozens of stories) that we need to go beyond a racial reckoning and examine the structure underneath: “caste is the bones, race the skin.” I believe my understanding of US History has deepened more from Isabel Wilkerson’s two brilliant, penetrating books than all the other texts I have read in the last several decades combined. Lisa                                                                                                        rated it: 5.0 from 5.0

This is an excellent study of how caste is structured and is sometimes a better lens for looking at discrimination than race. Wilkerson compares the situation of Untouchables in India and the Holocaust to the fate of African Americans during and following slavery. It is also an indictment of the 4-year dump nightmare. I found that the writing was very good, the stories always relevant, and the research solid. I can see why this book created so much buzz and endorse it as a critical study to obtaining an awareness of how the system is structured and maintained in order to dismantle it. Michael Finocchiaro                                                                                  rated it: 5.0 from 5.0