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Caste

The Origins of Our Discontents

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Caste

By: Isabel Wilkerson
Narrated by: Robin Miles
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power - which groups have it and which do not.

Beyond race or class, our lives are defined by a powerful, unspoken system of divisions. In Caste, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson gives an astounding portrait of this hidden phenomenon. Linking America, India and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson reveals how our world has been shaped by caste - and how its rigid, arbitrary hierarchies still divide us today.

With clear-sighted rigour, Wilkerson unearths the eight pillars that connect caste systems across civilisations and demonstrates how our own era of intensifying conflict and upheaval has arisen as a consequence of caste. Weaving in stories of real people, she shows how its insidious undertow emerges every day, she documents its surprising health costs and she explores its effects on culture and politics. Finally, Wilkerson points forward to the ways we can - and must - move beyond its artificial divisions, towards our common humanity.

Beautifully written and deeply original, Caste is an eye-opening examination of what lies beneath the surface of ordinary lives. No one can afford to ignore the moral clarity of its insights or its urgent call for a freer, fairer world.

©2020 Isabel Wilkerson (P)2020 Penguin Audio
Politics & Government Racism & Discrimination Social Classes & Economic Disparity Social Sciences Sociology Discrimination Thought-Provoking Social justice

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All stars
Most relevant
Being of Indian origin I am only too aware of Caste and the pernicious nature thereof. It was revelatory to have caste applied to the American condition. I was engrossed from beginning to end. Be prepared to be put through a gamut of emotions, ranging from aching sadness to visceral rage at the treatment of our African American brothers and sisters at the hands of the dominant caste (white people). Such treatment spans slavery, Jim Crow through to the present day. I sincerely hope that this book is made required reading in schools, colleges and Universities in the US. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. A masterpiece. Thank you Isabel Wilkerson for your tour de force. In Solidarity.

Brilliant book that should be required reading

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The grim skeleton of the structural racism that haunts and frames modern American life is laid bare here. This book presents clearly the effect of the human impulse to create hierarchy and then to raise up that creation to quasi-religious status so that it may not be questioned or properly seen, understood and demolished. That American society should be held in a self-reinforcing vicious cycle that blinkers 'good people' to the cause of the malaise in their country, and simultaneously allows a moneyed elite to profiteer from the discord sown and cultivated between groups even as ALL are being sold an unattainable, unsustainable 'American Dream' is saddening beyond words. Wanting to persist with a child's faith in the fairytale of one's nation's history is a sign of immaturity: it's time to stop patronising so many people by not challenging this fantasy. It is my sincere hope that my fellow human beings on the far side of the Atlantic can rise to the hyperbole of the marketing of the USA as the 'land of the free'. Reading this book may just help some citizens to discover the 'matrix' and begin to find a way out of it.

Essential to one's education

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Phenomenal, learned so much about African American history and the basis for race relations in the US

A truly enlightening piece

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The time flies by with such an insightful and powerful book. Wilkerson’s word are both personal and widely relevant. This book is a fascinating introduction to caste as a complex and structural concept. I will come back to this again and again.

Brilliantly written, brilliantly read

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I learned so much from this book despite many decades studying political and social sciences and around 30 visits to India since the mid 1990s.
The beginning felt a bit clunky, with a heavy and somewhat tedious emphasis on US politics, and oft-repeated assertions that the USA is the world’s oldest democracy (which will come as a surprise to the Greeks). But beyond that it becomes less trite and more profound by the chapter, exposing the underlying problems of all societies through the more obvious examples of American, Indian and Nazi German caste systems. A must-read for any informed discussion of social issues today.

Required reading regardless of ethnicity or nationality

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