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.
“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 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.