Caste (Oprah's Book Club): The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson Paperback Book

Details

Rent Caste (Oprah's Book Club): The Origins of Our Discontents

Author: Isabel Wilkerson

Narrator: Robin Miles

Format: Unabridged-CD

Publisher: Random House Audio Publishing Group

Published: Aug 2020

Genre: Social Science - Social Classes

Retail Price: $45.00

Discs: 12

Synopsis

#1 NEW YORK TIMESBESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • “An instant American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times\r\n\r\nThe 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.\r\n\r\nNAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY PUBLISHERS WEEKLY\r\n\r\n“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.”\r\n \r\nIn 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.\r\n \r\nBeyond 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.\r\n\r\nBeautifully 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.

View descriptions at Amazon.com

Reviews

BookLender review by Wendy Hall on 2021-08-12 20:48:06

This is an extremely important book! It is well researched and and presented. Isabel Wilkerson offers an eye opening perspective that could bring real and LONG over due change in our country. I believe it should be studied in high school history and become required reading in college sociology classes!