Caste:
The Origins of Our Discontents
by Isabel Wilkerson
Read or Download at: http://best.ebookcollection.space/?book=0593230256
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.
“[Caste]
should be at the top of every American’s reading list.”—Chicago Tribune
“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.
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