Caste

The Origins of Our Discontents

By: Isabel Wilkerson

Narrated by: Robin Miles

Length: 15 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

#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—now with a new Afterword by the author.

#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.

©2020 Isabel Wilkerson (P)2020 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"This enthralling exposé deserves a wide and impassioned readership.” (Publishers Weekly, starred review)

“Similar to her previous book, the latest by Wilkerson is destined to become a classic, and is urgent, essential reading for all.” (Library Journal, starred review)

"This is a brilliant book, well timed in the face of a pandemic and police brutality that cleave along the lines of a caste system.” (Booklist)

You owe it to yourself to read this book

Part narrative, history, sociology, anthropology, biography, and auto-biography. Above all else, a fresh metaphor that reframes the most vital American tragedy.

Caste is Powerful!!!

Amazingly Awakening!!!Powerful Brutatly Honest, The Real Truth-the tacit truth about America !!! EYE Opening!!!!!!!!!

No Sophomore Jinx Here!

I LOVED Warmth of Other Suns and often recommend that book to friends for it's well researched information with historical fiction to highlight the adventures of Black Folks making their way out of the dangers of the South.

Caste is another example of Ms. Wilkerson's skill as both researcher and story teller. I knew the book would be timely and I pre-ordered it to be sure I read it as close to its release date. It feels like she wrote it in a week because every key issue highlighting the current issues of caste in America are front and center on today's evening news. Sadly, what's old is new again and she reminds us of the 400 years of caste in this country.

The connection with India and Germany's systems of caste is eye opening. Every comparison made caused me an A-ha and an Oh My (and a few explicatives) because the fact that it happens... still...Makes You Wanna Holla!

In the summer of 2020, as Americans, especially African Americans, try to wrap our minds around the disregard for our plight and lives, Caste is an apropos book for all humans. It highlights all the BS. As the analogy in the book offers, it's a home inspection report for home owners to use to improve the structure or wait for the home to fall apart from unaddressed violations.

Consciousness raising

Very thought-provoking. I have not come across anything as captivating since I read Alex Hailey’s “Autobiography of Malcolm X’l more than 50 years ago

incredibly amazing look

This is what we live with every day and turn our eyes away from not wanting to recognize the facts in front of us.

A well written thoughtful non threatening proof of how all of what we live and all injustice throughout time is some way connected.

S

I agree with her thesis of the caste system . However she just recounts recent events most people know. It’s hard as someone from Syria to take a person who calls Hillary Clinton a “humanitarian “

RL Edwards review

Masterfully arranges and researched. An informative depiction of the the underlying sentiment among the people of the United States.

WOW

Great Great Great, I loved the examples. Learned a lot about subjects I thought I knew

Worth every minute of listening time

What a great historical look at America's structurally maintained caste system. I only hope we can all realize the grave situation we continue to face before it's too late.

This should be required reading!

I will never look at things the same way. Our world would be a better place if everyone read this book.