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

What a piece of drivel....If you know what Caste is, you insult those afflicted by it. Caste is immutable, you are born with it, you die with it, no movement is possible. Really should educated yourself on Caste and how it affects people outside your social justice bubble.

The first pages revealed a bias towards the left. Should have read the reviews before wasting my time.

Such a great author. Loved her first book also.

First chapter was all about Trump. Is everything Trump’s fault, really? He’s pretty crappy, but all his fault? Then I continued reading and it was very anti-American. Racism, colorism and caste exist powerfully all over the world. I’m my opinion, this book promotes a victim mentality and what a coincidence that it was released right before the election.

Ten years ago, I read “The Warmth of Other Suns”....The epic story of America’s Great Migration .... One of the most highly imagined - engrossing - heartfelt books I’ve ever read. There were three main unforgettable characters— their complexities - individual stories - and motivations for what they did - had to do - was soooo well written and experienced from Isabel Wilkerson...I’ve never forgotten the power and impact her book left on me. Ten years later...brings me to: “Caste...The Origins of Our Discontents”....( an Oprah Book Club pick... more deserving than all other ‘club-picks’, combined)....is an exceptional- needed - extraordinary - masterful - BEST NON FICTION BOOK ....perfect timing book - in the pandemic year of 2020 - that brings a whole new meaning to the term: “INSTANT CLASSIC”. *Audiobook*....read by Robin Miles [14hours and 26 minutes] .... Robin is the perfect reader for this book. Two full days of compelling binge listening. This book only left my side for one phone call, ( Tzipora), and couple of quick messages. The last time I listened to an audiobook with this much gusto, was when I listened to Michelle Obama read from her book ‘Becoming’. This book changes us... It has changed me. I’ll never think of caste, American Caste, dominate caste, subordinate caste, mis-casting of caste, sickness of caste, hate, suffering, violence, rejection of caste, cruelty of caste, disparity, fears, resentments, intolerance, mocking, beliefs, assumptions, lies upon lies, stereotyping, slavery, abuse, discrimination, oppression, class, blacks, white, race, hierarchy, and collective madness the same again. There is no returning to where I started from before this book. I learned so much more about American history....about AMERICAN CASTE HISTORY... realizing how much I never understood before. It would take me 5 to 10 years to write a deserving review to match a third of this highly accomplished book. And now that I’ve finished it - it might be a better use of my time to read professionals reviews, watch YouTube’s, podcasts, interviews, and read other readers reviews, than spend the next many years trying to write one book review myself. I do intend to stay engaged with the conversations - ( be mindful as one Goodreads buddy said), and apply action where it seems appropriate). Oprah must have some discussion group going, yes? I’d pay to join a quality book discussion with Isabel Wilkerson speaking. The only other time I engaged with one of Oprah’s online book clubs, was when she and Eckhart Tolle...lead a ten week -weekly hour- online gathering discussion- chapter by chapter ( people from around the world). Point is, I’m at at age, stage, and readiness of wanting to stay engaged learning, growing, re-evaluating, reassessing, being mindful, and taking action when it comes to social injustice- intolerance- racial justice - and civil liberties. Reading this book....was fitting with my own commitment to the cause. While digesting so much information from this book - I’m aware that I’ve still no idea just how ‘much’ this book is a useful gift ....it’s opened a new pathway inside my brain...for more...new... greater effective learning. Isabel Wilkerson connects caste histories - giving us a connective experience of the caste system in India, Nazi Germany, and in America. For example, Isabel, explains how radical inequality in America has its parallel in caste in inequality in India even though by definition race and caste are not the same thing. She draws different parallels from different systems of oppression. She breaks down eight pillars of caste: ( explores each of these with us to better understand) ....Foundations of caste origins of discontents ....Divine Will and Laws of Nature ....Heritability ....Endogamy and the Control of Marriage and Mating ....Purity Versus Pollution ....Occupational Hierarchy: The Jatis and the Mudsill ....Dehumanization and Stigma ....Terror as Enforcement, Cruelty as a Means of Control ....Inherent Superiority Versus Inherent Inferiority Race and Caste are examined - how they are similar and how they are different. Both divide society in many ways to the unfair advantage of certain groups over others. I particularly liked when Isabel included real people, situations, and their ‘oh-my-fricken-god’ stories that gave me a more direct experience of the intensity of discrimination. My mind connects best with real stories include...and there are plenty. There were several personal stories that will stay with me ... ....one was about a woman named *Miss*, ....another true ‘sharing-story’ about when Isabel was in a position where she was accused of impersonating herself. I’m still chuckling over that one. ....THIS IS AN INSIDE FUNNY FOR READERS WHO HAVE ALREADY READ THIS BOOK: In need for a new mailbox? Haha! There’s an old saying I learned years ago.... If you have a flat tire, and you’re angry about it.... you can kick it, and kick it, and kick it again....but the tire will still be flat. I mentioned it might take years for me to write a proper review. I could write much more about this book and I’m sure it would be a beneficial process for myself.... However, at this point, best to share the real truth to others: READ IT!!! It really should be required reading - in our schools - families - for humanity. I hope I was able to contribute a small part, of adding my voice to the endorsement FOR WHY READ - ( audiobook was great for me)...this book. Reading will have many advantages too. I’d need to consider purchasing- and reading this book for a next read. The start was awesome - a creative fun way to get a regular reader interested - ( and again its must be said that the voice narrator, Robin Miles was fantastic); I was immediately hooked. I was never bored but there were a few parts that were harder for me to understand than others. The journey is a process. I don’t think I’m expected to understand everything from one read, but I got a hell of a lot out of it. Isabel Wilkerson is a genius. She’s a phenomenal teacher ( besides incredible author). I’m thankful for the added spoonfuls of sugar, to the much needed medicine: seriously’ helpful in digesting this much learning in 2 days. Is it even necessary to say? 5 strong stars - and more. elysejody

I waited for months for this book to come out. It did NOT disappoint. I feel it is ten times better than her first book, which is truly saying something if you read Warmth. She compares the caste systems of Nazi Germany, India, and America, and in what ways they parallel each other. She breaks down how caste systems work (8 pillars), and very eloquently makes it easy to understand - often using real life examples to illustrate. (even her own experiences). I had already read how Nazi Germany wanted to utilize America's Jim Crow laws for what they were wanting to do with the Jewish population. And although the Nazis deemed America the global leader in race laws at the time, they also deemed America's Jim Crow laws TOO HARSH for what they/the Nazis wanted to accomplish! How's that for a damning indictment of America's caste system? The book is a masterpiece. Unfortunately, the disparity between 1 star ratings and 5 star ratings tell the tale, as to how far America has yet to go with acknowledging, understanding, accepting, and owning its past and present. People can disagree or choose to not accept, but the facts are there, and she states them plainly for all to see. All in all, the people who need to read this book, won’t. If they do, they won’t finish. If they do finish, they will concentrate on trying to poke insignificant and/or irrelevant holes in it (which don’t stand up, and were most likely addressed by Wilkerson in the book), instead of focusing on the matter at hand. Wilkerson does talk to politics, economics, legalities, etc., as they all are directly and/or indirectly impacted by the influence of our caste system. Regardless of your beliefs, PLEASE finish this book, as there is too much knowledge to miss out on. Wilkerson demonstrates how the caste system is invisible and embedded into all parts of our society. She shows how the institutionalization of caste, individually and collectively, lingers on. Again, she does a phenomenal job of making this plain, only if people will accept it. If you disagree with this sentiment (that the effects of a caste system are still being felt), then in addition to Caste and the suggested reads below, I would ask you to read a short book called Color of Law by R. Rothstein. That book will illustrate ONE of the many lingering effects of America’s caste system, and how it has/is adversely impacting (and been sanctioned by) people at local, state, and federal levels. And yes, for the record, the effects of caste can still be in play regardless of Oprah, Obama, or Wilkerson becoming successes. . . (which 1 star review folks are so wont to claim as “proof” that there is no more racism/effects of caste, thus no need for this book, thus Wilkerson is wrong, etc. . . just sad) If you don’t want to accept it from Wilkerson or Rothstein, then turn to our own U.S. Government, and read the Kerner Report. The fact that The Kerner Report is still every bit as applicable today as it was then, only substantiates Wilkerson’s take on caste. I always like when others suggest additional good reads, so here you go: Race, Racism, and American Law by D. Bell The New Jim Crow by M. Alexander Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by I. Kendi Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery by L. Litwack The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court, and the Betrayal of Reconstruction by C. Lane The Civil Rights Trilogy by Taylor Branch Race and Reunion by D. Blight An American Dilemma by G. Myrdal

Like many people, I've read even more books on race, society, and related issues since the BLM -- "Caste" by Wilkerson is a sobering, extremely beautifully written book on how race and caste have long determined how Black people and White people have formed American society. I admit to being only 50 pages into the book -- but the negative reviews I've read on Amazon have surprised me in one way, but not in another. And I feel compelled to write a review now. The attacking references about 'the left' that disparage the book ignore the scholarship, the clearcut analysis, and the deft thinking that the author puts forth -- those reviews tend to reflect a political mindset rather than a willingness to confront the facts of researched history. The unwillingness to deal with U.S. history beyond school textbooks has kept us in the dark about how to deal with touchy racial -- and caste -- issues. If you are White and privileged, as I am, it's eye-opening to read Wilkerson's painful recounting of so many thinkers, current and past, who explain how slavery has operated. Black people have undergone treatment that does not get eradicated by time -- just as Holocaust survivors cannot and do not want to forget the past, for fear of it being repeated. The author's prose style, furthermore, is close to poetry at times, even though her straightforward and expressive sentences are down to earth and matter of fact. I've been astounded at how each line carries a powerful punch, yet also expresses that power with poise and a dark beauty. Understanding the difference between caste and race has given me a whole new grasp on how Black people live in this country -- and why so many have had to live a life completely different from White people. Failing to understanding that difference is dangerous in terms of all of us coming together in harmonious and humanitarian ways. I am getting ready to order the Kindle version for my wife, since I am still reading, understanding, and starring the hard copy. This book is what people call 'a game-changer.' So far, I see no shortcomings, though I'm sure there are. Even her notes at the back of the book display the author's thorough scholarship without being pedantic. The only thing wrong with this book is a) not enough of the right people reading it, and b) people reading it with a closed mind, and already believing their own political beliefs are more important than the author's carefully researched thinking. I hope readers approach this book with an open mind, and discuss it in book clubs, and question their own souls, as my family and I have done (I have triplet 24-year-olds). With the election coming up, open minds are more important than ever, however one votes. This book is challenging, powerful, and engagingly written. Try it, please.

Author misunderstands Indian Caste System, can't be compared to incomparable.

This will be challenging to read if you’re white (as I am). It provides a novel-to-most-Americans, very revealing historic lens that hasn’t been a part of the civics and history lessons most of us received. If you’ve come to this book because Oprah recommended it, brace yourself - it’s not intended to make Americans feel good about themselves and “nourished.” This book is a hard read, not because its text is dense or complicated, but because it pulls back the protective curtain that allows so many of us to feel good about the ideals that American society allegedly embodies. Pay attention to the negative reviews by triggered white people and let them prepare you for some foul-tasting, but very well written medicine. You won’t enjoy it. You should read it anyway.

The book makes some valid points and offers points for consideration. It's always good for any person to get a fresh take a subject, so I would never say not to read something. But that doesn't mean I agree with the authors framing of the subject. Where I take issue with this book is that the authors overall focus is that this US "caste" system is race-based, when my world experience has shown that the issues are absolutely class-based, and extend to all colors, in all regions, where there is lack of jobs or other opportunities. I also take argument against the label "caste system" being used to describe the US at all, simply because a true caste system leaves zero chance for advancement, and is literally the opposite of liberty and human rights, which the country is founded on. 'Zero chance for advancement' is simply not an accurate description the US, regardless of race or class, or if the author chooses to use a 'loose' definition of the word in order to make their case. Not to say things are always easy or fair, but a strong will and determination goes a long long way when it comes to 'breaking out of your caste'. And also, not to say Americas leadership has lived up to the ideals written in our constitution. Bad management doesn't equal a bad system. A McDonald's franchise owner can run a store into the ground, but that doesn't mean the franchise system doesn't work. This book, like quite a few popular titles right now, really gives an exclusionary vibe to anyone that isn't deemed to be part of the authors accepted group of people. Tbh, I'm not sure of the author frames everything around race intentionally, to try to pander to their own race of people, or if this is just another attempt at someone cashing in on the 'everythings racist' mantra that seems to be at peak popularity these days. Either way, it doesn't do is any good to take serious, complex, and far reaching problems and try to simplify them down to just race, while simultaneously excluding and blaming people who are largely in the exact same boat due to one reason: Class

Purchase arrived in record time and in perfect condition. Thank you Amazon

It seems we live in a caste society. This is the message of "Caste: The Origins of our Discontent" by Isabel Wilkerson, a Pulitzer Prize winning author. She cites a number of sources to support her thesis, the most compelling by historian Nell Irvin Painter, who says simply and succinctly: "Americans cling to race as the unschooled cling to superstition." The author also makes the point that racial prejudice is not healthy. Indeed, she cites clinical evidence that harboring racial hatred can shorten your life, and ultimately kill you. At 388 pages the book is not overly long, and reads quite well. However, as well as the author makes her points, she often overstates the case, with repeated stories that after awhile become tiresome. Having said that there is much here to be learned, and I recommend the book heartily. Certainly, our nation has been long divided over race, dating back to 1619, when the first slave ship made port in Point Comfort, Virginia, and unloaded about twenty chained Africans, destined for slavery. Up to this point the concept of "white" and "black" people was unknown. The colonies were comprised of Europeans (mostly Englishmen) who did not think of themselves as white. And the arriving African slaves did not think of themselves as black, but as Igbo. Yoruba, Ewe Akan, and Ndebele. White people and black people were concepts that developed over time. Writes the author: "There developed a caste system, based on what people looked like, an internalized ranking, unspoken, unnamed, unacknowledged by everyday citizens even as they go about living their lives adhering to it and acting upon it subconsciously to this day." She adds, "Caste is not a term often applied to the United States. It is considered the language of India or feudal Europe. But some anthropologists and scholars of race in America have made use of the term for decades." Indeed, the idea of "race", is a recent phenomenon in human history. It dates back to the start of the transatlantic slave trade and thus to the subsequent caste system that arose from slavery. The word "race" likely derived from the Spanish word "raza" and was originally used to refer to the "caste or quality of authentic horses, which are branded with an iron so as to be recognized," wrote the anthropologists Audrey and Brian Smedley. As Europeans explored the world, they began using the word to refer to the new people they encountered. "Ultimately, the English in North America developed the most rigid and exclusionist form of race ideology," say the Smedleys. "In the American mind (race) was and is a statement about profound and unbridgeable differences (that) conveys the meaning of social distance that cannot be transcended." Geneticists and anthropologists have long considered race as a manmade invention, with no basis in science or biology. In fact, the term "Caucasian", a label often ascribed to people of European descent, is a word invented by a German professor of medicine named Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, who was so taken with the shape of a human skull he found in the Caucasus Mountains of Russia, that he applied it to the people he believed descended from there and settled in Europe. About two decades ago, an analysis of the human genome established that all human beings are 99.9 percent the same. Concludes the geneticist J. Craig Venter: "We all evolved in the last 100,000 years from the small number of tribes that migrated out of Africa and colonized the world." Which means the entire racial caste system--the catalyst of hatreds and civil war--was built on what anthropologists now call "an arbitrary and superficial selection of traits," derived from "a few of the thousands of genes that make up a human being." In other words, it is based on a lie. As slavery took hold in the Southern colonies, slaveholders began looking to the Bible for justification of their "peculiar institution" and, while conveniently ignoring Jesus's Sermon on the Mount, turned their attention to the Old Testament and learned that back in the Middle Ages some interpreters had described Noah's son, Ham, as bearing dark skin, and thus translated Noah's curse against him as a curse against the descendants of Ham--against all humans bearing dark skin. They took further comfort from Leviticus, which exhorted them, "Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are around you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids." They took as further license to enslave those they considered religious heathens, to build a new country out of the wilderness. Thus, a hierarchy evolved in the New World they created, one that set those with the lightest skin above those with the darkest. "The curse of Ham is now being executed upon his descendants," wrote Thomas Cobb, a leading Confederate and defender of slavery. "The great Architect had framed them both physically and mentally to fill the sphere in which they were thrown. His wisdom and mercy combined in constituting them thus suited to the degraded position they were destined to occupy." Writes the author: "The United States and India would become, respectively, the oldest and the largest democracies in human history, both built on caste systems undergirded by their reading of the sacred texts of their respective cultures. In both countries, the subordinate castes were consigned to the bottom, seen as deserving of their debasement, owing to the sins of the past." It would take a civil war, the deaths of three-quarters of a million soldiers and citizens, the assassination of a president, Abraham Lincoln, and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to bring an end to slavery in the United States. Still slavery would live on in a new form of discrimination--white supremacy. The white supremacists devised a labyrinth of laws to hold the newly freed people on the bottom rung ever more tightly, while a popular new pseudoscience called eugenics emerged to justify the renewed debasement. People on the bottom rung could be beaten or killed with impunity for any breach of the caste system, like not stepping off the sidewalk fast enough--or in trying to vote. When Hitler and his band of thugs took power in Germany and focused their hatred toward European Jews, who should they turn their attention to for guidance? To the discriminatory race laws of the Jim Crow south. According to Yale legal historian James Whitman, in debating "how to institutionalize racism in the Third Reich, the Nazis began by asking how the Americans did it." PUTTING AN END TO CASTE Writes the author: "The caste system in America is four hundred years old and will not be dismantled by a single law or any one person, no matter how powerful. We have seen in the years since the civil rights era that laws, like the Voting Rights Act of 1965, can be weakened if there is not the collective will to maintain them . . . "Caste is a disease, and none of us is immune. It is as if alcoholism is encoded into the county's DNA, and can never be declared fully cured. It is like a cancer that goes into remission only to return when the immune system of the body politic is weakened . . . "To imagine an end to caste in America, we need only look at the history of Germany. It is living proof that if a caste system--the twelve-year reign of the Nazis--can be created, it can be dismantled. We make a serious error when we fail to see the overlap between our country and others, the common vulnerability in human programming, what the theorist Hannah Arendt called "the banality of evil." "What's most disturbing about the Nazi phenomenon," writes philosopher David Livingston Smith, "is not that the Nazis were madmen or monsters. It is that they were ordinary human beings." Note: While preparing this review, I came across this quote by Nelson Mandela: "No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or background or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can learn to be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite." Mandela, it will be remembered, was elected as South Africa's first black head of state. Under his watch, the government focused on dismantling the legacy of caste (a.k.a. apartheid) by tackling institutionalized racism and fostering racial reconciliation.

In our society we are at a time when we can not hide from the history of the treatment of people of other races which has been bulwark of our economy for almost 400 hears. We must own up to having been remarkably hypocritical about dismissing those parts of our Christian Faith which proclaims that all men are created equal in the eyes and plan of God. Ms Wilkerson writes well in explaining what it is that keeps groups of people in “layers” of societies called “castes” or ranks or classes. It is fear of loss of something, be it power, wealth, or position. Our inborn system of class which put poor people at the bottom, certainly people of color, are kept at the bottom and wealthier people at the top, almost 99% white, who make sure that they are protected by laws to keep their status for generations. it is far less racism than itmis greed, money, or fear which maintains the system in the U.S. and also in India where the caste system is written into laws of religion and the state. Can human beings do better? We must try harder or there will be disparities, anger and wars forever.

Among the many books being recommended to help us understand issues of injustice in the United States, Caste is among the very best. Direct and thoughtful, it pulls no punches. But it also reflects a generosity of spirit and understanding of humanity that leaves one feeling there are ways out of our current crisis. Unlike some of the books written by "diversity trainers," and pundits, this volume does not make the assumption that we are all racist. Rather, it suggests that we are all captive to a structure created over the whole history of our country that puts each of us in our place and dictates a set of beliefs and behaviors that ultimately damage us all. It urges us to recognize the humanity of each of us, and to focus our energy and attention on caring for those who have been most disadvantaged. Wilkerson believes that in so doing, we help everyone, including those fearful of losing their dominant position. Wilkerson is a clear, powerful, elegant writer whose prose connects with readers in the human stories she uses to great effect.

Isabel Wilkerson is a pulitzer prize winning author for "The Warmth of Other Suns" and deservedly so. This book, however, is not what I expected. Why bring in another category of racism? We have enough problems with systemic racism. Caste comes out of India with the hindu religion. Our racism is directly from slavery and nowhere else. If you let yourself become a slave then what are you? Nothing. When that question is answered, we will start getting somewhere. Fascists and Nazis? That is political and a whole other problem. Ask Trump, he will explain it to you. I do not agree with her analysis and she offers no solutions.

Caste is thoroughly researched. Wilkerson has worked tirelessly on defining race in America and the state that we are in. As a person of what she would define as someone of the “ dominant caste” ( my skin is light even though I am half Arab I am half Irish) her research is razor-sharp and sobering. Having also just read Bryan Stephenson’s Just Mercy on race and the criminal justice system, I am just appalled at just how horrific things still are for people of color in America. I felt so naive as I had felt that while we had a long way to go towards racial equality, we had also made a lot of progress. I was also aghast at the statistics she quoted in general on the American quality of life. Many of them I knew, but some I did not and was horrified and sad to see how far our great nation has fallen. My only criticism of the book is I would have liked to see her address the role of social media in racial division as I think social media is playing a large role in dividing our country not just in regards to race, but numerous other areas as well. Social media is also contributing to general anxiety, depression and unrest. I also wished she had noted some positives steps that have been taken in our country and the hope for the future with our young people especially with BLM. Otherwise, I really found this book to be so readable despite the tough subject matter, and I am indebted to Caste for enlightening me on this subject.

Right out of the gate I’m going to say if the subject appeals to you then this is an excellent book and you should read it. Initially I thought this would be a more examination of caste systems in general. Instead Wilkerson is focused on recasting (ahem) racism as a caste system and primarily using examples from India (obvious) and the Third Reich (less so) as pillars to buttress the discussion of race in America. The writing is smart and approachable and I think Wilkerson succeds in making her point with well-supported evidence and arguments. One of the more shocking revelations for me was the disturbing connection between the Nazi review of Jim Crow laws as a roadmap for their pogrom. In some cases, Wilkerson is given to broad statements without much in the way of supporting rationale like when she states “Slavery…was an American innovation” (p.44.) I was looking for an explanation, but it never came. Enslaved by populations of previous civilizations may not be ready to concede that it was a unique innovation of the New World. There are a few instances like this, but these quibbles are heavily outweighed by the many more substantial arguments that kept my highlighter on standby. Wilkerson writes an especially powerful chapter contrasting the reverence of confederate monuments here with Germany’s memorialized response to the victims of the Third Reich. She also makes a substantial case laying many of the US’s currently poor stats in health, education, happiness, etc. (compared to other industrialized nations) squarely at the feet of the caste system. Overall, a wecome addition to the discussion of race that deftly fuses history, societal forces, international lessons, and personal anecdotes in a well-reasoned book before ending on an uplifting note with a beautifully written epilogue.

You may find yourself pausing to reflect on the author's thoughts and observations. I did. An intelligent, thoughtful author offers up interesting perspectives. I have never seen reviews like this book has received on Amazon! 5 star or 1 star, few in between. Those who didn't like it articulate few areas of disagreement. Rather, they are ANGRY! They want their money back! Who requests a refund for buying a book they disagree with? It is puzzling unless the very premise of the book is true, that some don't recognize their inherent biases.

Facts are either distorted, stretched beyond belief or simply fabricated out of thin air, then further manipulated by fallacious, tortured reasoning. It's no surprise then, that the author's conclusions are at best cringe-worthy and at worst, well, make up your own phraseology. This book does no credit to its author or the cause she believes she espouses.

There are moments in Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste when the reader has to pause, collect oneself because experiences described are raw and painful. The book gives context to the meaning of caste in a study of the experiences of black people in America, “untouchables” in India and Jews in Nazi Germany. Ms. Wilkerson’s goal in writing the book is to cast light on these histories so that we are conscious of the manner in which we treat one another. There are people who are immune to the powers of prejudice. In order to be that person, or to move towards the goal of diluting one’s prejudice, a history is revealed that we have a duty to know. The last chapter entitled “Epilogue” is a powerful advocacy for developing empathy for those who endure indignities. Ms. Wilkerson calls for a radical kind of empathy. I leave Caste with that empathy and the lesson that a world of caste is despicable. There is right and wrong in a moral universe. We cannot turn away when faced with injustice. To be a bystander is to be a participant. Read Ms. Wilkerson’s first book, The Warmth of Other Suns, to learn about the “Great Migration” and continue with Caste to learn about the toxic nature of racism.

Isabel Wilkerson's masterpiece takes on a horrific journey from slavery to segregation to the network of laws and culture that has and continues to limit equal rights for Blacks in America. Her title comes from the cultural comparisons of black Americans with the Caste system of India. The similarities are disturbing to read and had a profound affect on Martin Luther King Jr when he experienced the system first hand. And others watched and copied our treatment of blacks. The Nazis studied our treatment of blacks from slavery to segregation finding moral justification to apply our methods to Jews, albeit in a more horrific fashion. CASTE digs deep into the historical record of slavery documenting not only its horrors, but often incredible attitudes white owners held. A white women mused about her slaves being able to go to heaven with her? Such benign nonsense offers only temporary relief from the horrors of slavery and the Jim Crow era following the Civil War when the brief period of hope was replaced with power returning to former slave owners and a new wave of suppression lasting until modern times and civil rights legislation that addressed de jure racism, but certainly not the de facto racism that remains in our culture. The book is must reading for the likes of Trump and his Attorney General who fail to see the symptoms of enduring racism in our society. In his new book, RAGE, Bob Woodward argues with the president about how privileged whites lack both empathy and knowledge of black lives, their collective struggles and often lives of insecurity. Trump scolds Woodward and his indulgence in "drinking the cool aid", his colorful way of denying his own and the nation's continuing struggle to resolve our "original sin".

America is coursing through what might be its most defining moment in its history, and although much of its attention is focused on Donald Trump, it has to examine the underlying fabric of its society, its nation, and its identity. Like it or not, this is all happening now (as at time of review, September 2020). It will be a long process, and this book by Wilkerson is indispensable to all in America who has a reasonable voice and want to be heard. This book provides the matrix, the history, and the substance for examination. Not long ago, Wilkerson reminds us (the world), that when Nazi Germany was looking internationally for laws that help to protect and promote the ‘superior’ Aryan race, the country that came up as a top model was – The United States of America. We know what the Nazis did, but Wilkerson reports that even the German researchers of the day were ‘confounded by the lengths to which America went to segregate its population’. Race is a heated issue even (perhaps more so) in this day than ever before, the difference between now and the early twentieth century is that today, African Americans are able (to some extent) fight back. The history that Wilkerson traces is not just about race, because, as she explains, it is really about caste. ‘Race does the heavy lifting’ she explains, ‘for a caste system that demands a means of human division. Until the birth of the new nation of The United States of America, no one has heard of the word ‘black’ as a race. No one in Africa, Wilkerson writes, think of themselves as ‘black’. Everyone there is African. People do cruel things against a person of different colour for no other reason than the colour - that's racism. People who do cruel things to others in order to 'put them in their place' - that's casteism. The atrocities of violence committed by White ‘Caucasian’ Americans against black ‘African’ Americans are told in vivid and unnerving accounts that will leave any reader wondering, how any human might do things like that against another. It is not just the physical scars but the psychological ones that haunt survivors. Wilkerson gradually takes the reader gently towards a mediated future that with reason on very side, a newer, caste-less society might make America great.

People the world over are discriminated, have been marginalized and enslaved, yet this author chooses caste. Maligns Hinduism by stating that the social ill of caste has religious Sanction. Hinduism - Has a division of labor called Varna with movement within classes - No Hierarchical, Hereditary System in Hinduism - No Religious Sanction - Shes WRONG. Caste - SOCIAL ILL - imposed by Britain onto an exploited destititute and desperate nation - Created to make class divisions, divide and weaken Hindu Society - Nation denied learning is easy prey for internal social class exploitation and disunity. - Manusmriti was a legal framework of laws describing social classes. Superceeded by modern day Jurisprudence. Dalits - Same genetically and Racially as all other Hindus - Have had affirmative action programs for 70 years. Have US blacks had that? - Called Harijans, Children of God by Mahatma Gandhi in recognition of the social ill Author - Falls for the cows, caste and curry narrative - likely input came from woke liberals, marxists or Dalit Activists sitting in the US - isn't a pulitzer prize winner supposed to be better than mediocre academics? This Caste analogy fails as 400 years ago before the introduction of 'caste' Hindu Society as a whole was thriving in India. Have Blacks in the United States as a group of people been a fully thriving part of the US? Haven't the laws to disenfranchise blacks via a monitised criminal Justice system with a poor education system created an underclass? Disappointed that someone with Valid issues to raise about what Blacks have undergone chooses to link my religion falsely with a Social ill. Lastly, we keep hearing about the misery of slavery. I agree, it was a heinous and terrible crime against humanity, but newsflash - it happened to Hindus a thousand years ago when we were enslaved by Islamic Invaders. Fortunately For blacks in the US, their emancipation took less time and they're living in the USA. India's poor as a whole still do not completely have access to running water, electricity or indoor plumbing. It's getting there.

I love this book although most of the information is disheartening and sad, primarily for my people. This is a "must read" for white people. I believe it would help them to understand why black people's mindset is what it is.

This is a really well researched book with a lot of facts. It came be overwhelming at times, but it is extremely educating. It is a very interesting look at racism in the United States. It revealed a lot of facts to me I was unaware of. I don’t pretend that I have not benefited from white privilege, and I learned a lot. I wish she had included some ideas for how we can begin the long process of eliminating caste and racism in America. Overall a good read, and I would recommend it.

Wilkerson's analysis of what underlies our interactions with one another, what drives people both consciously and unconsciously, sheds a light on our world as no one else has done. As a reporter she constantly tells stories that illustrate all of the research done over decades that explains caste and how America lives with a caste system without knowing it. Eye opening. She has changed the discussion of race in America to the point it is hard to use the word "race" when we should be using "caste." Everyone should read this book.

I just finished Caste by Isabel Wilkerson, and this book couldn’t have come at a better time. With a lot of discussion of race and justice in the United States, it’s a politically charged climate. I was confused because I don’t know anyone outwardly racist, as in a member of a hate group, but so many people were resistant to the BLM movement. After reading this book, the problem is much more in focus. Caste is a system that affects every part of American life. Skin color, and the made up concept of “race,” has been used by 400 years to enslave and subjugate a whole people, for the exclusive benefit of the dominant caste. And the caste system is so insidious that it convinces us that it doesn’t exist. I think the most eye opening part of the book was the effects of caste. The system hurts all of us in so many ways: health and healthcare, democracy, stress and happiness. The author did a great job comparing an old caste system (India), and a new caste system (Nazi Germany), with the American system. The writing in this book is excellent, compelling, and easy to absorb. I think that everyone should read this book and then listen to the companion podcast for Oprah’s Book Club. I read and listened to the audiobook read by Robin Miles, which was also excellent. We are at a crucial point in our culture. Would we rather hold on to democracy and the ideas that we disseminate, or do we want to hold on to a brutal caste system that devalues life and liberty? ★★★★★ • Hardcover, Audiobook • Nonfiction • Published by @RandomHouse on August 4, 2020. ◾︎

Caste creates a new lens through which to view American society. At first, I was skeptical of the comparisons to India’s caste system and Nazi Germany’s reign of terror... there is no way we are similar in any way to those backwards, hateful places, right? Wrong. Ms. Wilkerson tells the story of an America utterly consumed by caste. More than any other book, Caste is a compelling exploration of how we got to where we are in America. Sure, there are no prescriptive solutions offered in this text, but that is simply not the point. Anyone could stand to benefit from a thorough reading and rereading of this book.

I find the book narrowly focused without considering the success of other minorities who participate in the so called American caste system yet are not considered in the authors argument. Was Very hard to finish a book so flawed. Most disturbing aspect of this entire experience is the fact that many who agree with this book with 5 stars calls anyone who disagree a racist?

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. She also gives a formula which are profound and revelatory. Chapters describe what she has identified as “the eight pillars of caste,” the methods used to maintain this hierarchy, such as heritability, dehumanization and stigma, and control of marriage and mating. In addition to such insights, including how immigrants fit into the caste system, what makes this book so memorable is Wilkerson’s extraordinary narrative gift. tories like these are painfully informative, making the past come alive in ways that do not beg but scream for justice. That said, Wilkerson is never didactic. She lets history speak for itself, turning the events of the past into necessary fuel for our current national dialogue. Dismantling the caste system is possible. Wilkerson points out that Germany did it after World War II. But in the meantime, “caste is a disease, and none of us is immune.” If you read only one book this year, make it Caste, Wilkerson’s outstanding analysis of the grievances that plague our society

I have finished Caste. What a book! The final sentence is perfect: "A world without caste would set everyone free." Isabel does a fantastic job of relating Slavery, Nazi atrocities and the Indian Caste system. The victims responded in different ways, but in the end they had their humanity and their oppressors lost/are losing everything. We are struggling toward a better world. Joe and Kamala's defeat of tr.pnce is a great thing. Still there will be struggles. The fanatic, adoring base will not go away but neither will they prevail. Isabel calls it exactly as it is.

This puts so much of the conversation about race in America into perspective. The author doesn’t flinch from the hard stuff but somehow manages to write about injustice in an even tone which makes it all the more vivid. Not a comfortable book to read but it is an enlightening one.

I began this book deeply concerned that to simply “re-language” racism was a pointless exercise. The author, to her credit, convincingly makes her case that caste is in fact the correct word. It's human nature to want to place one group at the bottom – "humanity" has done this before. Skin color just became a convenient identifier. The role of the bottom caste to inoculate the higher castes from failure: like a safety net it limits how far the upper caste can fall. Privilege, in this sense, is less about the advantages conferred and more about a kind of insurance. Without that insurance, people on the next-to-the-lowest end of the ladder fear one slip will let them fall into the abyss. This explains much about 2020 America.

Best portrayal of the source of racism and what it has become in our country and indeed, around the world. I agree that Racism has become a Caste system holding many of our countrymen and countrywomen in the bondage of Hate based on skin color. Reading this book opened my mind to an injustice that must be stopped. Laws will not change anything so long as generational attitudes of racial hatred remain to be passed to our young.

TBH, Ms. Wilkerson connected the dots on things that I knew and filled in the blanks on what I suspected was true. What I was gob stopped by is the depth of the information. How deeply the madness of those who benefit at the top of the caste system go to maintain it and what they are willing to sacrifice along with the tools they utilize to do so. Not only those who actually benefit, but those who seek the crumbs and cast offs. I love how the telling of this book brings the reader from the historical past into current events with clarity of the thread that is caste. Ms. Wilkerson reveals the anger that is stoked by the behaviors of those who display their sense of white(caste) privilege. Not a sense of hopelessness, but the realization (nothing new) of how many are willing to perpetuate it. Those who speak out do so as a matter of convenience (or inconvenience) at times. What I didn’t like while reading this book was a desire to throw it across the room—something of which I was forewarned. Fortunately, I listened to the audiobook on my device so by the time I reached my device in another room my agitation and anger had abated. Slightly. Great, on point and timely writing. Worth a revisit as we progress through this COVID-19 season and political climate towards the year 2042.

Given my many years as a professor of anthropology, and my annual teaching of a course I called “Origins of Modern Racism,” I thought I might disagree with the author’s use of the word “caste” to compare the horrors of historic and systemic racism in the U.S. with those of Nazi Germany and of India, ancient and modern. I was wrong. Wilkerson’s writing is well-researched, luminous, and courageously furious. How I wish I could have taught it in several of my courses before I retired seven years ago! True, it is not a sophisticated scientific research text (thank goodness), but rather a sophisticated creative report of immense ethical and political importance, an urgently necessary read for our day. In Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1946, as I turned 5 on Juneteenth, I walked up to my Uncle Bob, a handsome construction worker, and announced: “Today is my birthday, Uncle Bob.” My uncle, in conversation with another worker, looked at me, grinning, and said, “Yeah... ya know that ‘cause ya were born on N_____r Day, yer gonna be black when ya grow up,” and he laughed loudly. I knew he was being “mean,” but I took his declaration seriously, and from then on, when I saw Negroes (as we said then), I felt a connection to them, although our white working class family knew not a single Black person. By the time I realized Uncle Bob was just being his usual racist and sexist self, it was too late to remove the fertile fiction of my Blackness. Thus I worked with Black Panthers in 1969, became roommates with a Panther woman, and was a leftist activist in California and then Paris. I eventually went to West Africa to visit friends in 1985, was commanded by a group of Vodu women to write a book about them, for “We are extremely interesting, and white people know nothing about us.” I told them I was just an English teacher, and an anthropologist should write such a book. They then ordered me to go and learn how to do it and come back to them. I was already 45, but I applied to the PhD program in anthropology at Cornell U., was accepted with a full ride. And when I went back to Togo for fieldwork that would feed my dissertation, those Vodu women and many others, and Gorovodu priests, gave me years of information and poetry that turned my dissertation into a book. Thank you, Uncle Bob! And thank you, Isabel Wilkerson, for broadening the horizons I thought I had already explored to the end, and for doing so with poetic rage and scholarly precision.

Wow! Kudos to the author, never gave much thought to Oprah book club, but saw the interview with Oprah, decided to buy the book. Very informative, mind opening, and of course from my perspective very very true, Every African-American should own this book, a must read! This book explains what we've lived through why, how, and why we subconsciously behave, accept and perpetuate those ideas that have come to enslave US then and NOW.

Well written, well researched and painfully detailed - A heart wrenching but necessary read. Standout Quotes “The Nazis were impressed by the American custom of lynching its subordinate caste of African-Americans, having become aware of the ritual torture and mutilations that typically accompanied them. Hitler especially marveled at the American “knack for maintaining an air of robust innocence in the wake of mass death”. Isabel Wilkerson “Caste is insidious and therefore powerful because it is not hatred, it is not necessarily personal. It is the worn grooves of comforting routines and unthinking expectations, patterns of a social order that have been in place for so long that it looks like the natural order of things”. Isabel Wilkerson

This is a mind-bogglingly good book; one of the best nonfiction works I’ve ever read. Wilkerson covers *everything* and does it with such an exquisite mix of story, fact, and thought-provoking idea. I’ve been recommending it to literally everyone and can’t wait to incorporate it into classes. I was really impressed with The Warmth of Other Sun, but Caste is philosophically deeper and structurally stronger. An amazing book that shines a new light, over and over, on so very many aspects of our communal history and life.

This book is a real eye-opener, incredibly illuminating! Now I can start to understand what is happening in the United States. Caste is so well written, I couldn't put it down until I reached the end, and then I was sorry it was done. I will need to read it again.

I expected more since Oprah recommended the book.

This is another good one from Ms. Wilkerson. She writes about caste from the perspective of three countries; United States, Germany and India. I don’t know why she did not include the treatment of Aboriginals in Australia. Truth hurts and this is a disturbing book to read about the hopelessness and the unimaginable inhumane treatment of Blacks in the US, Jews in Germany and Dalits in India. While here in America, people of color especially blacks continue to suffer, she writes quite a bit concerning how Germany is presently dealing with the atrocities of the past, but she omits to mention the progress India has made since its independence from colonial rule vis-a-vis the dalits. Yes, she makes fleeting reference to this progress. Today there are around 300 million dalits in India. Caste in India is complex. While in America caste is a deliberately imported happening beginning with slave trade, in India it was forced by the Aryans who came in from central Asia. The tall and fair skinned Aryans, the hardy nomads of the grasslands who called themselves ‘noble ones’ entered India around 1500 BCE through the Hindu-Kush mountains in northwest India. Before this invasion, a well-developed, prosperous and widespread civilization dating back to third millennium BCE of the Indus Valley in the twin cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro (now both are being excavated in the present day Pakistan) of dark skinned people called Dravidians was already flourishing. With the Aryan invasion began the clash of cultures. The Aryans brought with them the oldest living language ‘Sanskrit’ which they meant ‘language of the cultured’ and the scriptures called the ‘Vedas’ which they said were god made, (‘shrutis.’) They considered the dark skinned conquered Dravidians inferior to them. For socio-economic purposes, the Aryans divided the society probably based on the color of the skin; priests, warriors, traders and workers and said they were God sanctioned and through their man made (smritis) book of law ‘Manusmiriti’ institutionalized this caste system. The first three in the system belong to the upper caste which the Aryans kept for themselves. The last one, the workers or laborers called ‘sudras’ of dark skin were classified as belonging to the lower caste and it is believed that they were the locals conquered by the Aryans. Manusmiriti is very harsh in the treatment of the sudras. Below the sudras are dalits who did menial work such as cleaning lavatories, sweeping roads, burying the dead etc., were kept outside this system and suffered even more than sudras. Due to the fault lines of caste in Hinduism, three great religions ‘Buddhism’ ‘Sikhism’ and ‘Jainism’ rose in India. To escape prejudices and discrimination from everywhere including from their own communities, dalits tried to find social acceptance by converting to Buddhism, Christianity, Sikhism and Islam. Ms. Wilkerson writes about the brilliant Bhimrao Ambedkar, a dalit who fought admirably for their rights. He was the architect of the constitution of India and dalits were brought into the mainstream under Article 341 of the Indian constitution and listed as ‘Scheduled Castes’ that afforded them special benefits under affirmative action aka ‘reservations’ initiatives of the government they so deserved thereby including them in the Hindu fold. Caste discrimination was outlawed. Although Ambedkar was a dalit, he was made the first Minister of Law and Justice of independent India. He embraced Buddhism helping mass conversions of dalits. Many reformers rose within Hinduism. The Bhakti movement that developed long ago was precisely to address the inequities in the Indian caste system including those pertaining to the untouchable dalits. Mahatma Gandhi during his freedom struggle gave the untouchables a new name ‘Harijan’ meaning ‘Children of God’ and brought over seventy million of them into mainstream Indian life. Any reference to the current caste system in India should be judged from the footmarks of history and the sufferings of the Hindus as a whole under 400 plus years of foreign occupation, first from the muslim invaders and secondly by the European British colonial masters. While the muslims were engaged in forced mass conversions of Hindus to Islam, the British exploited the divisions within the society and bankrupted the country not only economically but even stole the dignity of the people to their advantage. According to the erudite member of the Congress party Shashi Tharoor, the British rule reduced India from its glory of one of the richest countries in the world to the poorest one and its claims of bringing development and political unity was false. Under the British, India in 1858 was one of the richest countries in the world with a share of 23 percent of global GDP. When they left in 1947 the GDP was just around 4 percent. In the meantime to add insult to injury, the caste based society started slowly changing to ‘class’ based society which is still happening today. Only since 70 years after India gained independence from the British and inherited an empty shell of a once proud and prosperous nation, efforts are continuing by successive governments to address the inequities in the system to rebuild a country of glory and tolerance that it was once. While here in the US even today Blacks are being suppressed, in India affirmative actions and more enshrined in its constitution are continuing to improve the lot of the ‘dalits.’ The current President of India, Ram Nath Kovind holds highest office and belongs to a caste that is considered lower than the lowest amongst the dalits. Another dalit K.R. Narayanan was elected as the president in 1997. Despite the fact that officially the caste system was constitutionally abolished in 1950 when India became a republic, it still has major influence in contemporary Indian society. Yes, dalits are still suffering and no doubt more should be done. But progress is being made to address their plight at many levels. A number of non-governmental organizations are actively involved to right the wrong done in the past. Also, there is a noticeable change in the attitude of the younger people towards the dark skinned sudras and dalits. Many even do not know a thing like manusmriti existed. However, India still suffers from its cultural fixation with whiter skins. There are deeply rooted prejudices around skin color. But, the Black Lives Matter movement here in the US has inspired debate. Evidences of tolerance abound. There is a backlash against multibillion dollar skin whitening creams, powders and lotions marketed for example as Hindustan Uniliver’s ‘Fair & Lovely.’ They cleverly rebranded it as ‘Glow & Lovely.’ It is interesting to note there are controversies relating to the invasion of the Aryans. Many believe that Aryans were indigenous Indians and the invasion theory is is just a myth. Hindering the progress is the issue of conversion. Taking advantage of the plight of the dalits, organizations associated with Christianity and Islam are very active in converting them to their religion thereby complicating the divisions within the society. The religions of Islam and Christianity are considered foreign and hence converted Muslim and Christian dalits are not afforded the same benefits enjoyed by converted Buddhist and Sikh dalits, as Buddhism and Sikhism are considered indigenous. It should be noted that forced mass conversion of Hindus by the Islamic Moghul invaders who ruled the country for over 200 years resulted in the partition of the country with the birth of Islamic Pakistan which itself was further divided thereby giving birth to Islamic Bangladesh. Hindus in India are very much concerned about the possibility of further partition based on religion and are therefore paranoid of conversions. For the benefit of the readers, I wish Ms. Wilkerson devoted some space in the book concerning the history and these efforts in India just as she has vis-a-vis Germany. For this reason I am giving the book a four star. I hope Ms. Wilkerson will use her enormous talent and intellect to write a book on European Colonialism that has devastated countries in Africa and Asia for which they take no responsibility even today.

76 people found a one sentence pan "helpful?" Yeah, right! Trying to see the issue as "caste" makes sense, but it will be preaching to the choir for many.

Simply an amazing book!

This book is probably required reading for 'critical race theory', the popular nonsense that says blacks are victims and white are users. This book never acknowledges the massive efforts made in the U.S. to blur the lines of race and to help those at the bottom. Taxpayers pay for food stamps, Medicaid, housing assistance and more. Then there was school busing in the 1970's which was to give blacks a better chance at education. It was expensive, didn't work , and has been abandoned as government policy. Then came the anti-discrimination laws and open housing. Affirmative action got blacks - including Michelle Obama - into universities they couldn't otherwise qualify for. Author Wilkerson doesn't acknowledge the massive improvement in the lives of many blacks who, because of the legal support of many whites, have moved into the middle class. This is a book that promotes black entitlement which is responsible for the riots and destruction in city after city. Yes, the police are out of control but, unreported by the media, they are also running rampant in white communities. Isabel Wilkerson is a talented writer but this is a book she should not be proud of.

This book is outstanding.The author does a superb job of explaining caste in America,Nazi Germany and India.There was so much to absorb that I feel this book should be read by all high school children.

To fully understand the roots of our racial division, this book explains the long history of humanity that brought America to this place in time. When you read the book, the pieces will begin to fit together and make sense. No other book in all my years has ever explained the origin of the sins of slavery and man’s dominance over his fellow man so well. This should be in all high schools as required reading.

When I sat down to read this, I sat down with my usual accompaniment of highlighter and spiral notebook… only to quickly realize that I would *literally* be highlighting every word and/or writing down everything… So know this: The entire book IS the highlight. It is extremely well-written and researched. It is complete and sweeping in its scope, gob-smackingly revelatory and brings history's truths alive in our present moment, explaining so much we have felt but couldn't define. It unearths the roots *and* the seed (the truth!) with the immaculate skill of a botanist. This isn't about being "woke", and it doesn't want your sympathy. This is a history book about the United States of America with vital information that has, until now, been completely left out of our learning process. It should be recommended reading for everyone, and I am recommending it to you now. Don't avoid reading it because the pandemic has you all depressed and you don't want to read something depressing - this isn't like that… You will be too enthralled (and trying to re-hinge your jaw) to be depressed. And I wasn't depressed when I finished reading it either… I felt/feel both purged and filled... and my mind has been busy ever since. Knowledge is power, and the truth shall set you free.

In a word, disappointing! Almost immediately you pick up on two underlying beliefs that drive the narrative; that castes are unique and evil. Missing is a view that they can perform a service in identity and community for the individual. Substitute ‘village’ for ‘caste’ and suddenly it appears differently. By focusing on three infamous “caste” cases, the Nazis, caste in India, and American "racism", you are compelled to assume their negative moral value. Missing is references to at least two other caste systems that function well and do good, the military and organized religion. The book is scholarly and well researched, but it is only a first step in finding a system of values for individual worth to replace caste if, in fact, it has no justification for existing. Is Noblesse oblige a bad thing?

I am enjoying reading this book. Anyone that is wanting to truly understand caste and how it happens and continues to happen needs to get this book.

The is the top book on the subject of caste and slavery. So well written, reads very well and tells the story of American black people incredibly well. All Americans need to know this history. This book is a classic must read.

Isabel Wilkerson, following her triumphant "The Warmth of Other Suns," presents readers with the concept of American systemic racism being a function of caste. Utilizing examples of institutional caste from India and the Third Reich, she slowly and meticulously builds a case. Citing the effective and efficient use of propaganda to effect the demonization of the "other" by the government, she deftly illustrates how effective propaganda will ensure that erroneous assumptions are adopted by the majority of people in a society. That negative images, myths, and conspiracy theories are readily accepted by the masses is at once understandable and tragic. Certainly the consequences of this propaganda has been tragic for Dalit (sometimes referred to as "Untouchables") in India, Jews under the Third Reich, and Blacks in the United States. The book is more than an historical overview, however. It is a timely examination of a system that continues to negatively affect the lives, education, health, well-being, safety, and future of Blacks - and other people of color - in the United States. Whether one ultimately agrees with Wilkerson's conclusions or not, the book is well-researched, well-documented, and extremely well-written. It can be the starting point for meaningful discussion and, ideally, social change.

A well researched book about the systematic racism that exists in the US. It gives the history of the development of castes to justify racism. There is mention of how Nazi Germany used methods employed in the US to develop many of their rules. It also addresses how Germany has "come clean" about their past. There is such a plethora of information that people need to be made aware of. I borrowed the book from my public library but want to support the author so i bought a copy. I plan to share it with friends that have expressed an interest in reading it.

I DO NOT WANT THE KINDLE VERSION I WANT THE BOOK. I DO NOT HAVE A KINDLE READER.

This is one of the most compelling and insightful monographs I've read in recent years that cleverly weaves together social theory, history, psychology, biography, and cross-national comparison to tell a larger human narrative. It helps me to understand the character of "racism" in the United States through the concept of caste in a way I was not accustomed to. Instead of treating caste as an outdated notion that belongs to presumably ancient, hierarchical, authoritarian, and nonwestern societies outside of our cultural sphere, what Wilkerson does such a good job of is to lay bare the underpinnings of this "infrastructure"--as she calls it-- and its continuing psychological, political, and economic effects on both the dominant and subordinate castes, even in countries that are assumed to be the epitome of Western affluence and progress: the United States and Nazi Germany. For Wilkerson, caste entails the differentiated ranking of human value, worth, and entitlements--enforced often through violent political means--that position someone with certain immutable characteristics (phenotype, religiously sanctioned social strata, ethnic origin, etc) that they were born with above or below others from social groups occupying varying traits. It also reveals the relative rigidity of such a system despite recurring challenges or exogenous shocks from below. Caste manages to stay intact by enacting superficial mutations to absorb these shocks, but without fundamentally destroying its core. Perhaps most importantly, the book tells a poignant story of dashed aspirations, suppressed talent, and destruction of dignity and lives for those consigned to the bottom of the caste pyramid, as well as the steep price that the dominant caste has to pay--including a loss of empathy, intense status anxiety, and its own dehumanization-- by denying humanity and equality to those it deems inferior and undeserving.

Purchased this book as a birthday gift for my husband after seeing the author interviewed on TV. Just received the book so he has not started reading the book as yet but he was very happy to receive the book.

A complete refutation of those who believe racism is not systemic, this book logically compares the castes of India and Nazi Germany to our American Experience. This book, and its endorsement by our heroine Ms. Winfrey, is a masterly demonstration "The Emperor Wears No Clothes". The scholarship of many recent authors is elevated by this book's approach to the engrained, insidious and evil influence of our selfish idiocy as a culture and political construct we call a "nation". The book is moving, compelling, honest and inspiring. Everyone will be have a better life if we can use the themes here to inspect our own thinking and help others through the necessary growth which could flower from their thinking. I need the help of others and invite it as I commit to try.

...beliefs and assumptions all contribute to a “collective madness—and it is that—which feeds on half-lies and quarter-truths and dread.” -Paraphrased: Isabell Wilkerson/ CASTE This is an incredibly important book. It is starkly and well written describing realities and scenes that I know to be true as some of the events described are from a place where I was born and where my family lived for decades. As a child, I saw first hand the inequities and cruelness of the Caste system as it affected my family for both those that remained in the place of my birth as well as how it affected those that decided to flee to another state in order to follow their dreams. Caste has affected all of our lives however healing has occurred and the opportunities to make different choices presented and led to new friends,new places and new opportunities. At the same time, it is easy to recognize that the poison that slavery perpetrated on our country and our society is visible and is still a very virulent threat for the well-being of all of us. Both this book and the Warmth of Other Suns should be required reading for every person in the United States.

Wilkerson clearly and calmly tells us all the history left out of our textbooks, the psychology of racism without using the word, and what we can do about this pervasive human flaw that compels us to discriminate and dominate at our own expense in order to maintain the fictional superiority we crave. It is sad, uncomfortable, intelligent, and hopeful. Many people should read it, and re-read it, especially if the momentum of 2020 begins to wane.

My white-except-for-me Buddhist sangha formed a book group on race after George Floyd's murder. This was our latest book. During our discussion, almost all of us independently said it was "eye-opening" and that we "enjoyed" reading it (not in a yippy-skippy kind of way). Isabel Wilkerson has skillfully integrated little-taught history, personal narratives and clear analysis using the US, India and Nazi Germany to make the most compelling book I've read in a long time. At the end, she contrasts how present-day Germany is dealing with its part in the Holocaust --- taking public responsibility, teaching it in school, etc., which is in sharp contrast to what the US continues to do in regards to its enslavement and continued oppression of Black people --- denial and continued honoring and support of white supremacists. Given the white supremacist insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, and the white supremacist stickers recently found in my university town, this book is all the more relevant. Highly, highly recommended!

This book is a great read for anyone interested in better understanding the reality of the discrimination African Americans endure in the US. It lays it down in true stories, with just the right amount of statistics. It is a tad long, so the 4 star rating, but highly recommend given the importance of the topic. Given what some reviewers highlighted as partisanship, I was expecting a biased perspective. The author’s writing didn’t strike me as particularly biased (other than her vehement rejection of Caste systems). I assume that Wilkerson is a Democrat. Yet she speaks highly of Republican candidate John McCain in her book. I can understand that not everyone is pleased with this book. Her core message is not a happy one: - chapter after chapter, she tells stories of perfectly innocent people being disadvantaged, bullied, hurt, sometimes killed by other human beings because of something they were born with. - she makes it painfully clear how systemic this issue is. For example, she refers to surveys of the US population showing anti-black sentiment at roughly 50% throughout the Obama presidency. - while her focus is the US and her reference to India and Nazi Germany are mostly used for comparison purposes, she highlights that castes are to a large extent a derivative of human nature. A book worth reading, as one can only solve what one understands. For a good counterpoint, African American studies Yale professor Hazel V. Carby wrote a good piece in the london review of Books called the limits of Caste. Her main contention is that the author takes too centric/personal a perspective, focusing too much on high achieving non-migrant African Americans.

Did you know that German Nazis thought leaders were studying America in the 1930s to figure out how the United States had achieved their incredible (to them!) feat of keeping one race definitively separated? Yeah. So that happened. This book would make excellent reading for those folks of all genetic backgrounds who talk about how their one black friend 's experience (that one time) proves racism is no longer a thing. By redefining "race" in terms of "caste," Wilkerson provides a fresh new lens (at least for this reader) with which to view our 400 year American experiment. It is chilling, maddening, terribly sad, and yet somehow manages ultimately to be hopeful as well. It is the perfect book for the present moment, when none of us has the luxury of looking completely away.

This book was quite the difficult read. Not because the words flowed like a mountain stream. Not because the sheer amount of research tied together history and facts as elegantly as a violinist drawing their bow across their instrument. And it's definitely not because you can clearly feel the author herself in every page of this book. You can feel the hideous effort of will it took her to bring this book and its message to the world. No, in all of those things Ms. Wilkerson has wildly surpassed any and all expectations. The book is a marvel of non-fiction. One that is sorely needed in these current times. What made this book difficult was that it will connect your own role/place in the American Caste system. I can only imagine that no matter which caste system you are from as long as you have an open mind you will feel. Anger, hurt, remorse, frustration, pride, awe, compassion, and hope. I'm certain I am doing the author a disservice by not listing the full gamut of emotions you might feel. The conversations I have had as a result of this book have been nothing short of wearying and difficult. Yet, as painful as they have been, this book has informed me in a way I had not thought possible. It has given me much to consider, much to address and oh so many feelings to process. While one might feel some discomfort or even pain when reading Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent, that's a good thing. It means you are still alive and are still capable of growth.

This book reads easily, yet is not a fun or easy read. It simply hammers, over and over, how caste prescribes the behavior of everyone from the confident white male to the lowest Dalit in India, and how it wears away at the low caste, while stacking the deck to assure the success of the privileged. The key point is that it’s not just “racists” causing trouble (because obviously WE aren’t racists) but that caste is a huge factor in every decision regarding people, and it has permeated even to everyone’s unthinking behavior and perception. You wind up at the end profoundly sad that so little has changed, either in USA or India. She seems to think that Hitler’s WW II era caste system has been dismantled in Germany, but I am afraid that, too, may simply be latent waiting for the opportunity to come roaring back.

This is a very thorough, in-depth explanation of the caste system in the U.S. and the fact that the German Nazi's developed their strategy for Jewish caste based on that of the U.S. The book also discusses India's caste system. For me, this book was very absorbing, and enlightening but also very heavy with the revelations of some of the atrocities committed against African Americans in this country. I had to take my time in reading it. It's a very serious read.

This book makes you think of all that you may have done to position yourself with the dominant caste. If you are not of the dominant caste, this book will be painful as you will find in here all of the American experiences that made you feel that you do not belong in your own country. Caste has a real and negatived health effect described in this book and this is why after retiring, I left the United States of America. Upon leaving I immediately experienced better health and spirit and peace of mind.

Fascinating yet anger-inducing book. Fascinating like a train wreck from which you can’t look away. Anger-inducing because the caste system is real and still exists. I’d only heard of the caste system in India. It’s here as well - we just haven’t labeled it as such. In 2020, the thought that the color of a person's skin keeps them from so many opportunities, or affords them so many (depending on the color) is just disgusting. This book explains, but never excuses, the history of the American caste system, one that has given some advantages from birth, while holding others back. It’s a great stand-alone book and also a great follow-up to Wilkerson's “The Warmth go Other Suns.”

This book will shred your heart into pieces, yet everybody who loves this country should read it. I could not read more than a few pages at a time. I love history and especially US history. For me this knowledge is a must. Only Ms. Wilkerson could write this book. I don’t think I was ever so shaken up after reading a history book (with the exception of the stories of Polish holocaust’s survivors). Again, Ms. Wilkerson’s prose is unlike any other writer’s prose. This woman is an American Master and a national treasure!

With current event and the racial unrest going on in the United States I was trying to figure out what was the geneses of all these problems & why it is so persistent. I heard Isabel Wilkerson speaking on the radio & decided to get her book, "Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents." I'm a 64 year old white male who lives in Virginia and after reading the book, I get it. It covers our history from 1619 up to 2020 & argues that what we really have in the USA is a Caste System & compares it to the Caste System of India & Nazi Germany. The Nazis actually studied USA laws to develop there laws. I would highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to understand the racial problems that exist in the USA today. This info should be incorporated into high school USA History classes. We should & can do better as a nation!

If you are anything like me, what you learned about our country in school was very inaccurate. If you are interested in learning truth about your country, you will want to read this spectacular book. I'm not suggesting it will make you "hate" your country, but it will open your eyes to her many faults, and perhaps open your mind to what we living now ought to do about past sins. I cannot recommend this book more highly.

Like many, I read the author's earlier book. It was well researched, organized, and well written. I expected as much from this book. She lost me with comparison of slavery to the Holocaust. What an insult! Slavery was a terrible time in our country. However, every race has been enslaved. Doesn't justify it nor does the fact that the blacks brought to this country were enslaved by their own race and sold to the traders. It has not stopped blacks from Africa coming here now. No matter how bad it is here it is often worse there. That does make our country systematically racist, whatever that is suppose to mean. If we were so racist explain Barack and Michelle Obama, Ophra, Sydney Poirier, Leontyne Price, Leslie Odom, my next door neighbor, Gwen and hundreds more. According to one source (Statists Researc) 721 civilians have been shot, 142 were black. This does not back up the premise of blacks are killed at a greater rate. Nor does anything I've found support much in this great disappointment of a book. I, too, would give it minus stars.

I must first give praise to Amazon and the USPS for the rapid delivery of this item. I ordered it yesterday and received it the next day, on time as stated when I placed my order, with the return address from a different state. As for the book, I think Ms. Isabel Wilkerson is a great writer. I read "The Warmth of Other Suns" and truly enjoyed its historical events and the sagas of certain families, because in it I could relate to similar family events. So, I have no doubts that I will enjoy "Caste" as well. I recommend both of these books for their historical context, as well as, Ms. Wilkerson's ability to keep the reader's attention page after page. One thing that I don't care too much about, as I'm seeing it quite often in places or events, is that people are giving more credit to this book being listed as a book from "Oprah's Book Club," where at times the title of the book wasn't mentioned, nor was the author's name who wrote the book. Look at how the book is titled by Amazon when you asked for a review, Caste (Oprah's Book Club): The Origins of Our Discontents. That is not the title of the book. Please stop. Give Ms. Wilkerson all of the credit that she deserve for researching and writing this book without Oprah's help. I didn't purchase this book because Oprah has it listed in her book club. I purchased it for factual historical content and good reading, that is not on Oprah, that is on Ms. Wilkerson. Please don't belittle her success by equating it to Oprah. Ms. Wilkerson can shine on her own, she doesn't need Oprah. Thanks.

Caste is magnificently researched and written and is particularly relevant to the present social/political American state of affairs! As a member of the supposed “dominant” class, it is with regret and astonishment of the revelation of the destructive influences of “Caste” on American society. The notion of “America the Beautiful” or the motto “One Nation Under God” is rather diminished after reading “Slavery by Another Name” by Douglas A. Blackmon followed by the author’s brilliant and heart-rendering “Warmth of Other Suns” and now “Caste” revealing America’s entrenched racist hierarchy. The description of the Caste of India was also edifying. It is a sad legacy of American history that the German NAZI planners studied the race laws and “Jim Crow” of the United States in arriving at the NAZI Nuremberg Laws in the oppression, discrimination, and subjugation of European Jews concluding in the genocide of the Holocaust.

Caste deserves its place in all the "Best of 2020" lists I've seen. I've read several books recently where many of the themes of caste, racism, and race are discussed ("Strangers in Their Own Land", "White Rage", "The New Jim Crow"). But Wilkerson's book brings all the themes together into focus. Wilkerson makes the American caste system based on skin color, physical attributes, and entitlement to power vivid and apparent. For me, her analysis fully explains much of what we see today. Maintaining and strengthening whites' racial identity absolutely defines the motivations of Trump's base to a tee. When under threat, group narcissism makes people willing (in this case, whites) to sacrifice themselves and their ideals and interests for the survival of the group from which they draw their esteem. Wilkerson points out "A caste system builds rivalry and distrust and lack of empathy toward one’s fellows." So true as evidenced by the US’s disparate response to COVID. One telling anecdote in the book is a conversation she had with Taylor Branch, the civil rights historian who asks: “If people were given the choice between democracy and whiteness, how many would choose whiteness?” Post-election 2020, the answer to this question is crystal clear. I hope Americans can rise above our horrible caste system. I certainly intend to try. "Caste" is a highly recommended book.

In Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, Isabel Wilkerson describes the infrastructure of the United States as a caste system akin to the Indian caste system and the one employed by the Nazi Germany. Eight pillars or commonalities between these three systems are outlined. Wilkerson draws from research dating back to the foundation of our country. Yet this book does not read like a history book as Wilkerson also uses seemingly apolitical news events, cultural references like the Matrix movie and anecdotal stories to explain her theory. One of the facts that I found of special note were that the Nazi party actually used our laws as the template for their regime. They found our miscegenation and Jim Crow laws to be the most defined and delineated of any country. They also found our race laws to be the most depraved. Wilkerson also showed how our caste system was literally killing us. Hatred and racism stimulate the fight or flight response causing spikes in not only adrenaline but cortisol as well. This leads to high blood pressure, heart disease, uncontrollable weight gain, fatigue and insomnia. Prolonged periods of stress literally takes off years off a life. The stress from "dominant group status threat" was leading to what she calls "deaths of despair" as the illusion of being in the dominant caste slipped away from middle aged working class White people. Mortality rates for this group increased while that of other Western nations decreased. A contributing factor to these "deaths of despair" might be medical bias. Blacks are erroneously perceived to have a higher pain threshold. When they complain of illness they are more likely to be disbelieved. While physicians tend to ignore the pleas of their Black patients, their implicit bias causes them to over-medicate their White patients. This disparity in prescription pain management is one of the reasons why we have the current opioid crisis. We also failed to put in place effective drug treatment measures when faced with the crack epidemic in the 1990s. As the face of the addict then was primarily black and brown it was treated as a criminal issue instead of a medical one. Conditions like diabetes and heart disease may not have as much bearing on genetics as sub-Saharan Africans do not share in these maladies. The high proportion of Black people suffering from these diseases is unique to America. Furthermore, these diseases can not be attributed to lower social class status as it has been shown that death rates increase with more educational and financial success. The more often they came in contact with the dominant caste and experienced acts of discrimination, the more "weathering" their cells underwent and the quicker they aged. There are many more intriguing facts and bits of history that Wilkerson shares with us. I really learned a lot from this book and have already ordered physical copies for myself and friends. I hope that you get yourself a copy and read it too.

At times I found Wilkerson’s argument for linking the Hindu construct of caste, the Nazi-era political adoption of eugenics and anti-Semitism as other equivalencies of American racism to be somewhat awkwardly forced, especially in the first few chapters. However, as the book evolved, especially as she interspersed her personal experiences as an American, the parallels to Hindu castes become more apparent. Wilkerson holds the higher class status that seemingly accompanies her well known professional status as a journalist and author; nevertheless she documents her everyday experience of subtle and not so subtle racism and discrimination that accompanies her obvious caste status as an African American. Not much different from the way that a Dalit with high professional accomplishments would be treated by a a much less accomplished but higher caste Brahmin holding the proper surname. Wilkerson is at her best making her point through telling a story, either her own or those of other people she writes about, as she did in her absolutely superb book on the Great Migration of African Americans from the South to the North and West — The Warmth of Other Suns. As she documents in that book, and underscores in Caste, racism was embedded in the behavior and belief systems of whites in the North as well as it was among Southern whites as African Americans moved north. Opportunity to advance socially may have been nominally more open away from the latter years of the Jim Crow South, , but their skin color signaled their caste status, and there were severe limits, seen and unseen at work everywhere. Wilkerson is a great talent. She can invoke James Baldwin and WEB DuBois, and a host of other great African American scholars and author to buttress her position. However, her own keen instinct for telling a personal story, her own as well as other people’s, puts her own contributions to understanding racism in America on a par with those other great Americans.

It’s only by accepting and facing your faults can you be free from them. This book has shown me the underbelly of America and a side I have been pretty well protected from throughout much of my life. Being married to a person not of my caste has shown me some of this ugliness, though, this book has been able to take my personal experiences and view them from a more rounded historical framework. Thank you, Isabel Wilkerson, for having the courage to write this important literary work, even in the middle of your own personal Armageddon.

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent took my breath away. When I finished the book, I was immediately ready to start again. There is so much to process. Wilkerson's book is one of exceptional scholarship and storytelling while making deep connections rooted in empathy. She writes about the unspoken caste system that has shaped American life while linking it to India's caste system and aspects of Nazi Germany. "Evil asks little of the dominant caste other than to sit back and do nothing. All that it needs from bystanders is their silent complicity in the evil committed on their behalf." "A caste system builds rivalry and distrust and lack of empathy toward's one's fellows."

Everyone should read this book. The research that the author completed on this book is mind blowing. This book should be read in all High schools and colleges. If you don’t complete this book and don’t have a better understanding of the racial problems that are occurring and have been occurring for hundreds of years, then you better look in the mirror. Racism will continue to be a problem unless people take the time to be educated. I am giving this book to my entire family to read. I was amazed and shocked by the similarities of Jim Crow South and Nazi Germany. Isabel Wilkerson is a beautiful writer.

I believe that "The Warmth of Other Sons" was one of the best researched well-written books about the migration north and west of blacks from the south. I have recommended that book to everyone I know and have thought that it should be required reading in high school. Caste does not carry the same recommendation. It begins with a very unoriginal rant about Trump (welcome to the liberal echo chamber, I am a liberal so I know) The author opens with some analogies about the dangers of burying the past, that maybe be perceived as novel my a middle schooler and then it goes on present some boring facts that might be gleaned from an internet search. I probably would have tolerated "Caste" to a higher degree if I had not read "The Warmth of Other Suns". Like so many non-fiction books I read, Caste is really just a mildly interesting essay, that has been puffed up into a mediocre book.

The Warmth of Other Suns was one of the most important books I’ve read. So, I was really looking forward to Caste. When I previously thought of castes, I thought only of India. Wilkerson posits that the Third Reich was also a caste system. And, of course, the US. In fact, the Nazis used American race laws to design their own system. Unlike the Indian caste system, which had hundreds if not hundreds of separate castes, we basically have two. White and Black, as the poorest white is still above a Black person. Wilkerson uses the first section to set out her premise. By Part Two, she gets down to the history, spelling out how it came to be and evolved through time. From 1619 until 1865, the slaves were the obvious lowest caste. But even after Emancipation, the country found ways to keep the Blacks in the lowest segment of society. The surprise is how current this book is. She not only covers the Obama presidency, but also the Trump election and his first three years. Even the corona virus is covered. One of the most important points she makes is that racism is not just the personal hatred by one person, but a systematic abuse, often so deeply ingrained in society as to be oblivious to those in the upper caste. And that the upper caste will do everything to keep their privilege intact. Wilkerson uses a blend of historical research, individual examples and even personal history to flesh out her theory. Some of the stories are gruesome in the extreme. It’s a hard truth to realize that there’s scant difference between a Nazi labor camp and a southern plantation, both using multiple means to dehumanize the targeted segment . And she rightly points out that brutality actually worsened after the Civil War, as the whites no longer had a monetary investment in the black population. By 1933, there was a black person lynched every four days in the south. Wilkerson is not shy about talking about current US affairs, post 2016. She makes an important point about the narcissism of a group. “A group whipped into narcissistic fervor is eager to have a leader with whom it can identify...The right kind of leader can inspire a symbiotic connection that supplants logic. The susceptible group sees itself in the narcissistic leader, becomes one with the leader, sees his fortunes and his fate as their own.” This isn’t an easy book, but it’s extremely important, especially in light of current times. It’s one of my best of 2020. Towards the end of the book, Taylor Branch is quoted as asking, “So the real question would be, if people were given the choice between democracy and whiteness, how many would choose whiteness?” My thanks to netgalley and Random House for an advance copy of this book.

Wow!! I really loved her first book but I cannot say that about Caste. The first chapter is so biased towards the left it's laughable and I'm libertarian. I cannot recommend this book to anyone and if I could give it negative stars I would. How can we mend our country when you only see the speck in someone else's eye and not the log in your own. So sad.

Part One, Chapter One will be a tough read for half of the American audience. If this is you, push through - you may learn something.

I had an open mind until I read this opening description which posits as self-evident the proposition that: "Most people see America as racist,,,,,". Now that it is obvious there is zero objectivity in this thesis, there is no point in reading it.. It is anti-American SJW trash. I feel sad for anyone that is this brainwashed.

"Unless one reaches for those foundations and tears them out, she warns, caste is likely to remain with us long after our current moment of racial reckoning is done." Hmm, what happens when you tear out the foundation? for almost as long as humanity exists, there has been a divide. black vs white, christian vs muslim, muslim vs jewish, tutsi vs hutu, the list goes on.

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, makes the case that America is a caste system analogous to that of India's but organized on the basis of race. She strongly implies that the 2016 Presidential Election was somehow evidence for this claim and then outlines what she posits are the features of the American caste system (8 pillars of caste): Wilkerson's 8 Pillars of Caste: 1) Divine Will and The Laws of Nature 2) Heritability 3) Endogamy and the control of marriage and mating 4) Purity vs pollution 5) Occupational hierarchy 6) Dehumanization and Stigma 7) Terror as enforcement, cruelty as a means of control 8) Inherent superiority vs inherent inferiority Wilkerson's thesis is ostensibly ridiculous as a description of contemporary America, which is actually organized as a hierarchy of competence where competence is roughly determined by free market forces (any serious discussion of political economy is strikingly absent from Caste), a meritocracy in other words. Wilkerson's claims are also reckless, especially given the media attention given to her work (i.e. Oprah's recommendation). This is not a work that is seeking to achieve the racial reconciliation and harmony of a post-racial America where all races and creeds can cash the promissory note of the American founding and the American dream. It wallows in the racial sins and misery of America's past (slavery, lynching, and Jim Crow) and labels those evils as America's essence rather than the chronic disease that America has always aspired to eliminate. I would be more inclined to take her arguments seriously if she didn't assiduously avoid all the aspects of American life that plainly contradict her or at least mitigate against such a stark perspective. For instance, Wilkerson completely ignores Asian American minorities in her books. She fails to address why in a caste system organized by race with "whiteness" as the dominant identity that Asian Americans are the most educated, wealthiest ethnic group. Of course black/African Americans historically suffered much deeper, more severe iniquities than Asian Americans, but her thesis is predicated on the claim that society is systemically organized to ensure dominant status for white Americans. It's just sloppy to have such a glaring omission, a white elephant of sorts that lurks behind every lines. Moreover, Wilkerson's seeming aversion to sociological and economic data is evidence as she opts for the telling of emotive anecdotes of racial iniquities. Wilkerson is a moving writer; however, the lack of rigor, specificity, data, and analysis belie her true intentions, which are those of an activist rather than a scholar (activists don't have time for pesky facts or to dissect a delicate, hot-button topic in a balanced, dispassionate fashion). There were some aspects of Wilkerson's discussions of race that I thought were accurate. For instance, she does point out that there is no biological (i.e. genetic) definition of race, making it decidedly a social invention. I think this is an important insight, but Wilkerson does not follow this understanding through to its conclusion. Given the harm caused by the arbitrary use of skin color as a historical system of oppression and disenfranchisement, we should aim for a future where skin color is no longer a meaningful measure (a color-blind egalitarian society where one's merit determines their place in the social hierarchy). Despite Wilkerson's vagueness on how this supposed American racial caste system can be remedied, it is clear that this is not the vision she has for America's future or even believes that such a future is possible. I could belabor my critique endlessly, but I think a recommendation to readers interested in this topic would be better. Political Tribes by Amy Chua, although not as directly engaged on the issue of race, is still far superior in its discussion of similar issues, a balanced, reasonable analysis of the tribalism in contemporary American society.

Loved her book about internal migration in the USA before and after ww2. Thought I would be just as impressed by her latest. Instead the beginning is a predictable assault on Trump and shock that the “ over qualified “ Hillary lost. If you watched MSNBC or CNN you have already read the chapter. Fake news written large. Saying that the picture from Roosevelt hospital in nyc with garbage bags as protective aprons for nurses and aides is accurate. It wasn’t. They wore the garbage bags over the hospital provided protective equipment . There was no shortage and even the nurse’s union admitted it. Using the kids in cages as an example of Trump’s cruelty yet the program started with BHO.Blaming Trump for the birther controversy, yet Hillary’s campaign was the origin. Everything is group identity and politics. Yet if skin color is the issue why are Indian immigrants the richest American and Nigerian immigrants to America the best educated? The issue is not skin color but the grey matter inside. Shame that someone as talented as the author goes for the easy explanation.

After reading her last book I knew I had to get this one. This one is better than the last. So much research went into this book and it shows!

I bought Caste on Audible because it was recommended by Oprah, excited to start listening but was so disappointed. It's such a racist book. It does nothing to feed the soul. I returned the book.

Like so many, I was looking forward to reading this book--so much was promised by the pre-release publicity. Alas, I was disappointed. The book's thesis, that caste explains race in America, is not proven, in part because the author appears to not have a very good grasp of what caste is. When discussing American "caste," she stays with white (dominant caste) and black (subordinate caste)--but there is no such thing as a two-layered caste system--such systems have multiple layers with complex rules and interactions. A better analysis of American caste would show the multiple layers of caste within the white community AND those within the black community. Even then, seeing American racism through the lense of "caste" is not likely to be illuminating. Also, I found the book poorly organized, the prose style rather mediocre, and the research rather shallow. There are many many books available that do a much better job of analyzing race in America.

Isabel Wilkerson has provided the world a new, and clearer, understanding of the United States of America and its greatest flaw. I've read other reviews (few by percentage) that feign outrage at the "bias" in this book. Those reviewers are very likely examples of those referred to in the title of chapter eleven: Dominant Group Status Threat and the Precarity of the Highest Rung. There is actually very little, if any, "bias." Wilkerson delivers clear and straight-forward evidence that backs up her thesis. It is likely that those that don't like the book are unwilling, or unable, to recognize that the caste system actually exists. A must read for all Americans.

Had never considered caste to be a problem in America, but racism sure is. The author makes an excellent case for caste with examples from both India and Nazi Germany. Well written, and a recommended read!

So much has already been written about Isabel Wilkerson and this latest book, that I can only add by own praise to her latest towering achievement. "The Warmth of Other Suns" was a journey through a whole new (for me) slant on American History in the 20th Century. "Caste," however, does not offer us the blurred edges of time. It talks about the world as it's happening now and it's often painful. I urge everyone to read it and talk and talk and talk about it.

I learned why senseless divisions by caste exist in America and abroad and why it is sensible to destroy caste before the effects of disregarding others arbitrarily because of their caste destroys humanity. I agree with the conclusion that we could be an example for future humans and leave a productive, safe, wonderful world history for their benefit if most human beings on Earth respected their neighbor.

If humanity is to wring itself from the deluge of its self imposed hatred towards its own self, it will first have to understand the origin of its hatred. Or as Prof Wilkerson writes, the “origins of our discontents.” This contents of this book are powerful, aggravating, hurtful, insightful and noteworthy. Those who are of the dominant caste will find issue. Those of the subordinate caste will find issue and therein lies the reason why her words are necessary. An entire caste system based on the amount of melanin one’s phenotype exposes to the world... a diabolical asinine truth that we would do well to do away with and this book is the beginning of that work.

Caste makes the argument that US race relations mirror the caste systems in India and Nazi Germany. The author draws powerful parallels between the three models, in particular the US south under slavery and Jim Crow. While there is no doubt the effects of this caste system have ramifications today, the parallels of caste are not as strong after 1964. The book relies to heavily on personal anecdotes to support the author’s claim that a caste system persists in the US today. That said, the author offers compelling evidence that some of the worst atrocities and injustices toward African Americans have happened recently (in the twentieth century) and not in a long ago American past that we have transcended. Caste or no caste, there is clearly a problem.

This is the 5th book I've read this year on race-related issues. It is definitely my favorite - it has introduced me to metta concepts that have been hidden in plain view all of my life. Holy heck, it explains so, so much about our society. The interplay (and differences she cites) of 'caste' and 'class' is absolutely fascinating to me. I wish I could give this book 10 stars. Just by writing/publishing this book, Isabel Wilkerson has contributed more to changing our society than most politicians and other cultural leaders do in a lifetime.

This fabulous book may change forever how the reader views what is usually and misleadingly called "race" (in parentheses because there is only one "race" and that's the human one). What is really at issue, according to Wilkerson, is not "race" or color or class, but caste. Every person who is aware of white supremacy, and opposed to it, can learn a great deal from this book. Wilkerson writes gorgeously and with unrestrained humanity, just as she did in The Warmth of Other Suns. It is a pleasure to spend time with her in these pages. The question I would have like Wilkerson to address is: once we realize that we have a caste problem in the United States, not a "race" or a "class" or a "color" problem, what implications does this have for how we go about changing it? She addresses this only in passing toward the end of the book. But this is a minor criticism. One book cannot do everything. This book, by redefining the issue, may be the most important book so far of the 21st century.

Thank you Ms. Wilkerson for such a flowing and informational sequence of events. I savored the first 250 pages as though it was my favorite holiday meal. Every page was filled with historical events and studies that not only showed what happened but the outcomes. However, at around page 270 for about fifty pages the facts seemed to slip away and causal relationships were inserted in places that could have been seen from a million different perspectives and outcomes. It made this a hard book to continue with but taught me the importance of references and supporting evidence. Thank you for ending the book with more events and "facts" and showing the light at the tunnel.

So disappointed in this book. I ordered it hoping I could understand the plight of our wonderful Black American brothers and Sisters and hoping I could find some insight on how we can move forward and heal.

Isabel Wilkerson established herself as a writer of significant influence with the publication of her landmark work, "The Warmth of Other Suns." This seminal work chronicles the Great Migration of post-Civil War blacks northward to the industrial centers of Chicago, Detroit, New York, et al. In her most recent book, she examines racism in the light of the concept of caste. The subtitle of "Caste" is "The Origin of Our Discontents." Wilkerson examines three caste systems: India, Nazi Germany, and the United States. Linking these three societies together is not something I would have been able to do on my own, with the author leading the way toward new levels of awareness with her insights and anecdotes. I had chills when I read that when the Nazis came to power in Germany, they wondered how to cement their cultural views of racial purity into a well synchronized legal system They turned to the Jim Crow laws of the post-Civil War South as their template: "By the time that Hitler rose to power, the United States 'was not just a country with racism,' Whitman, the Yale legal scholar wrote, 'it was the leading racial jurisdiction - so much so that even Nazi Germany looked to America for inspiration.' The Nazis recognized the parallels even if many Americans did not." (p.81) The author does an excellent job of making her case for racism being a form of caste by sharing the Eight Pillars of Caste that can be found in the three societies examined in this book. Pillar Number One: Divine Will and the Laws of Nature Pilar Number Two: Heritability Pillar Number Three: Endogamy and the Control of Marriage and Mating Pillar Number Four: Purity versus Pollution Pillar Number Five: Occupational Hierarchy Pillar Number Six: Dehumanization and Stigma Pillar Number Seven: Terror as Enforcement, Cruelty as a Means of Control Pillar Number Eight: Inherent Superiority versus Inherent Inferiority The author spends the remaining 200 plus pages offering specific examples of how these eight pillars have undergirded the particular caste systems in India, Nazi Germany, and the U.S. In a very moving Epilogue, Wilkerson shares how Albert Einstein served as a bridge between the caste systems of Germany and the U.S. After fleeing the antisemitism of Nazi German's caste system, Einstein settled in Princeton, New Jersey. He was shocked to find that he had not completely escaped the depredations of caste: "In America, Einstein was astonished to discover that he had landed in yet another caste system, one with a different scapegoat caste and different methods, but with embedded hatreds that were not so unlike the one he had fled" 'The worst disease is the treatment of the Negro,' he wrote in 1946. . . . He could 'hardly believe that a reasonable man can cling so tenaciously to such prejudice.'"(p. 378) When Einstein and his wife learned that acclaimed opera singer Marian Anderson was denied lodging at the local Nassau Inn, they welcomed her to stay in their home, beginning a friendship that endured until Einstein's death. His awareness of the parallel between the oppression of Jews in Germany and blacks in America awakened in him a strong sense of responsibility to act. "And so he did. He co-chaired a committee to end lynching. He joined the NAACP. He spoke out on behalf of civil rights activists, lent his fame to their causes." (p. 379) The parallel to our day is striking. As the Black Lives Matter movement has grown in the wake of countless examples of death and injury from police brutality, like Einstein in post WWII America, leading lights in academia, sports, the arts, and politics are using the bully pulpits afforded them by their fame to speak and act against the invidious aspects of racism that persist to our day.

If The Oprah and this author are any indication, the caste system isn’t working. They could’ve never achieved this success. Doomed to live the life they were born into. Really hard to feel sorry for a woman who is a Billionaire and one of the most influential woman on the planet! This author and many others paint this picture that nothing has changed since the 17th century. White people no matter what they say or do are guilty by association. But their is money in racism and many aren’t going to let go of that money maker and white people will never achieve a better position in the eyes of some black individuals. The caste system certainly applies to whites and their eternal battle to achieve a better position than that of racist.

She writes about a black family in an all white neighborhood in Texas (the Hales). One day she says Mr. Hale was mowing his front lawn when a white man asked him what he gets for mowing the lawn.Wilkerson writes that Mr. Hale says he gets to sleep with the lady inside. Wilkerson does not mention that this is a very old joke from the 60s, told by DickGregory!

This is a book all thinking Americans should read this fall: it is well-argued, fascinating and very well-written. I was particularly taken with the consistency of Wilkerson's argument, which I find convincing and on-the-mark. After you read this, you will never regard American society in the same way. I found that my heart ached when thinking about past encounters I have had (as a white male) and past encounters I have witnessed with black Americans. I have had police officers apologize to me for giving me speeding tickets; they have "adjusted" my speed so that I would not fall into the "wreckless driving" category (much appreciated, by the way); I have been treated in general with such deference in so many contexts, that I never really thought about it. When I do now, I cringe just to think about WHY that deference occurred. I always thought it was because I am a nice guy, not because I represented the dominate spot on the caste hierarchy. When I saw others treated not so well, I dismissed it in my mind as probably grounded in some logical cause, NOT caste position. Boy, was I wrong. I think this book explains much of the aggressive nature of the Republican political stance, which has revealed itself to be unconcerned with the democratic process (voter suppression), and is hypocritical in its application of the American notion of fair play (imagine Republican response if Obama had Russian connections, or had blown the pandemic response!). It really is about retaining one's dominate spot on the hierarchy in light of changing demographics. I am embarrassed by this Republican hypocrisy and Anti-Americanism, and hope that this will not be the undoing of our country. Hats off to Wilkerson for her militant articulation of a real threat to our Constitutional freedoms, while at the same time expressing a real social dynamic that percolates into all aspects of our daily life. My one - very minor - criticism would be her discussion of Robert E. Lee (pp. 333-339). I agree with everything she says about Charlottesville, etc., but I would point out that Lee himself was no advocate of the Lost Cause, and would be horrified at the thought of the hagiographic image of him in statues throughout the land. When asked about memorials to the Confederacy and the war, he said forget it, don't mention it again. I think he was ashamed and embarrassed by his Confederate service. Winfield Scott said that Lee had made the biggest mistake of his life by leaving the Federal army, and he was correct. Also, as harsh as Lee was in punishing slaves at Arlington, remember that he never owned slaves, nor did he own Arlington: those were "possessions" of his wife, Mary Custis. Lee grew up in a rented house with his single mother in Alexandria; he attended West Point because it was free. The only home he ever "owned" was the President's house in Lexington, Virginia. Lee himself was a complex and tragic individual; his real conflicted life should not be conflated with white supremacist notions of who he was and what he did. Oh, and that Confederate flag "the size of a bedsheet" that Wilkerson notes (p. 346), is not on the interstate, but on Route 29 outside of Danville, Virginia. It flies in response to the city of Danville taking down a small Confederate flag outside the Sutherlin Mansion a few years ago, and is an embarrassment to most of the citizens of the region. It flies on private property, and its presence sickens us each time we have to drive past it. It will only disappear when the folks who fly it disappear, and that will take generations.

Review: Caste– The Origins of Our Discontents, by Isabel Wilkerson, 2020, 475 pp., Random House, original published at Urbanitus.com As the razor-edged finale to a presidential election riven by ambiguity reaches its conclusion, one overarching reality will endure in stark clarity: the bi-polar, cultural disease dividing America into two angry and unforgiving camps. Rivers of words diagnosing the malady are fast becoming analytical torrents. Recrimination and reaction to its implications are beginning and will accelerate. As with the companion pandemic that has overlaid this red and blue-hued socio-political plague, experts and historians will parse the origins for generations to come. The rest of us, meanwhile, can do something more immediate. We can read Caste – The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson, a book published just in August that reorders most of the prisms through which conservatives and liberals alike think about America in its 244th year. Even if not intended as such, this work of anthropology, sociology, psychology, political science, philosophy and history is a deep well of insight, a primer even, into the dynamics that animated the just-concluded vote, and that will surely animate its aftermath. Implicitly, this book is also about cities, the spaces where the global issues of this moment are being most profoundly tested, from climate change to shelter to migration to policing. It is also in cities, from Austin to Amsterdam to Abuja, where we might hope that the twisting kaleidoscope of a fast-urbanizing world will transform the divisions of caste into a mosaic of equality. On one level, Caste is about race and racism, an exploration of America’s original sin of slavery that haunts us today in virtually all of our institutions. But race and racism both have a predecessor that we need to better understand if we are to effectively confront the stubborn and subtle resonance of racism below the surface of so much of what passes for progressive rhetoric. How can Austin, for example, be both the most avowedly liberal city in Texas and the most sharply segregated? A large measure of the answer might be found in that predecessor of race and racism, this phenomenon of caste and casteism. In fact, the absurd concepts of race and racism are effectively creations of caste, argues Wilkerson. With this insight in hand, she builds on other recent work, going deeply and broadly into a larger realm that connects our history to that of the anti-Semitism in the 1930s that led to the Nazi Holocaust, and to the millennia old caste system of India that brutally stratifies that country today. In the process, Caste expands upon the seminal work of other recent efforts such as last year’s Pulitzer-winning 1619 Project of the New York Times Magazine, and the new book revealing the sanitization of the 1950s and 60s civil rights movement, The Sword and the Shield – The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. by historian Peniel Joseph. But Wilkerson also takes her readers backwards to pioneering scholarship in the early 20th Century South by the the Black anthropologist Allison Davis in the 1930s and on to America in the 1940s with the work of Gunnar Myrdal, the Swedish economic sociologist and Nobel laureate who penned the 1944 classic book An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy. Weaving this tapestry of history and globe-spanning research together, Wilkerson delivers her own pioneering illustration of how tribal hatreds weaken and impoverish victim and victimizer alike — along with all bystanders. ‘None of us are ourselves’ “It was in the making of the New World that Europeans became white, Africans black, and everyone else yellow, red, or brown. It was in the making of the New World that humans were set apart on the basis of what they looked like, identified solely in contrast to one another, and ranked to form a caste system based on a new concept called race. It was in the process of ranking that we were all cast into assigned roles to meet the needs of the larger production,” Wilkerson writes. “None of us are ourselves.” It’s not that Wilkerson neglects the horrors of slavery, or for that matter Nazi evil or Brahmin brutality and domination. From castration of slaves to President Andrew Jackson’s horseback riding with bridal reins made from Native American flesh, to lynchings continuing well into the 20th Century, there is little horror that escapes Wilkerson’s gaze. But it is the subtler and more pernicious diffusion of caste into our relationships, our rules of engagement with one another – and ultimately our national politics – that make Caste indispensable to understanding our own cultural wars and the deepening collateral damage. “Americans of today have inherited these distorted rules of engagement whether or not their families had enslaved people or even been in the United States,” Wilkerson writes. “Slavery built the man-made chasm between blacks and whites that forces the middle castes of Asians, Latinos, indigenous people, and new immigrants of African descent to navigate within what began as a bipolar hierarchy.” Wilkerson takes a vivid example from the March 2018 series of bombings in Austin, Texas that killed two people and injured six over 20 days. The first to die was 39-year-old Anthony House, a project manager living in East Austin, killed after he picked up a package that exploded on his porch. Because House was Black, police initially suspected the case might be drug-related or that House might even have accidentally detonated the bomb himself. “Based on what we know right now, we have no reason to believe this is anything beyond an isolated incident that took place at this residence and in no way this is linked to a terroristic attack,” then-Interim (now permanent) Police Chief Brian Manley told reporters. Some ten days later, that theory gave way to presumption of a hate crime when another Black and a Latina resident of East Austin, 17-year-old Draylen Mason and 75-year-old Esperanza Herrera, died as they picked up similarly disguised bombs left on their porches. But it was only after two White men in West Austin triggered a bomb by tripwire and were critically injured six days later, and two days after that when a bomb exploded at a FedEx warehouse, that the investigation began to suspect domestic terrorism. That brought in the help of 500 federal agents and the “police now raced at warp speed,” Wilkerson notes. Ultimately police cornered the 23-year-old suspect, Mark Conditt, who blew himself up as they closed in. Manley did finally label Conditt a terrorist, but Wilkerson asks, what might have been the outcome if the caste-blinded police had warned the public initially about the threat of randomly dropped packages instead of waiting 10 days? “People can come to disregard the predicaments facing people deemed beneath them, seeing their misfortunes as having no bearing on their own lives, seeing whatever is happening to them as, say, a black problem, rather than a human problem, unwittingly endangering everyone.” ‘The dominant caste around which all other castes revolve’ It is this all but hidden taxonomy of rank and status guiding our actions, in ways most of us are scarcely aware of, that is the great choreographer of decision-making in American and other societies, Wilkerson argues of her research that took her to Berlin to understand the rankings of “Aryan purity” in the 1930s and throughout India to examine the workings of India’s intricately complex caste system today. “A caste system centers the dominant cast as the sun around which all other castes revolve and defines it as the default-setting standard of normalcy, of intellect, of beauty, against which all others are measured, ranked in descending order by the physiological proximity to the dominant caste,” she writes. This understanding of caste explains why recent immigrants from Africa have reversed the practice of earlier “middle castes,” say Italians or Jews from Eastern Europe, who quickly changed their surnames to assimilate as quickly as possible into the dominate Anglo-Saxon caste; Binghenheimer becoming Bingham or Rossellini becoming Ross. Immigrants from Ghana or Grenada cannot so easily join the presumed dominant caste for the obvious reasons of skin color. So they must take pains to isolate themselves from the bottom-rung of African-Americans, maintaining distinctive accents, dress and names, or in some cases even discouraging their children not “to act like African Americans.” Wilkerson quotes the late and greatly esteemed Indian jurist B.R. Ambedkar, who rose from his Dalit, or “Untouchable,” origins to become the author of India’s constitution and anti-caste campaigner: … “each caste takes its pride and its consolation in the fact that in the scale of castes, it is above some other caste.” Which, moving toward today’s political reality in America, explains why so many journalists and analysts were, and remain, blindsided by Donald Trump’s support from working class Whites in 2016 and now. And perhaps it is insight into his surprise support in 2020 from some Black males despite support of White supremacists, or the votes for Trump from Latinos in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley despite the wall, the family separations, and the ugly characterizations of migrants. “The liberal take was that working class whites have been voting against their interest in supporting right-wing oligarchs, but that theory diminishes the agency and caste-oriented principles of the people,” Wilkerson says. “Many voters, in fact, made an assessment of their circumstances and looked beyond immediate short-term benefits and toward, from their perspective, the larger goals of maintaining dominant caste status and their survival long term.” And while caste may take its largest toll on African Americans, through unending police brutality, biased outcomes in court, and the world’s highest incarceration rates, its insidiousness leaves few untouched. It is in fact the dictates of caste that lock all Americans into the worst health care and basic education systems of any developed nation and a growing chasm of income inequality that rewards 1 percent of Americans with more than all the assets of the entire bottom half. In short, our caste consciousness has led us to a point where for some a place high in the American caste system has more value than health insurance, a living wage, political instability, protection from a virus, or threats from overseas. ‘The susceptible group sees itself in the narcissistic leader’ And in a kind of analytical crescendo, Wilkerson brings that dissection of caste right up to what might prove the most durable understanding of the headlines of recent days. For this she turns to the work of Eric Fromm, the late German Jewish psychologist who saw firsthand, and later wrote about, the connection between the pain, anxiety and insecurity of 1920s Weimar Germany and how it fed narcissistic narratives of racial greatness and superiority among the German population that were to nurture and sustain their embrace of a narcissistic leader. “The right kind of leader can inspire a symbiotic connection that supplants logic,” Wilkerson argues. “The susceptible group sees itself in the narcissistic leader, becomes one with the leader, sees his fortunes and his fate as their own.” She quotes Fromm himself, who fled the Nazis to the United States and who died in 1980: “The greater the leader, the greater the follower… The narcissism of the leader who is convinced of his greatness, and who has no doubt, is precisely what attracts the narcissism of those who submit to him.” A single book will hardly resolve the ancient hatreds and divisions of caste and all the destruction they have wrought. A single election, whatever the outcome, will hardly heal the fears and resentments of a dominant caste that have created a society turned against itself. But without the promise of both, as wildfires burn, glaciers melt and cities erupt in violent standoffs, hope for the species seems slight. “A world without caste,” suggests Wilkerson, “would set everyone free.”

“Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents”, by Isabel Wilkerson, is an important read. It contains any number of assertions that are, evidently, hard to stomach for many white Americans. I decided to write this review after reading the large number of negative (and sometimes irate) reviews on various sites. Most of those reactions seem steeped in a kind of insistent denial that systematic, institutionalized racism exists in contemporary America—a fact that many white folks just don’t want to face. As a white, middle class male who grew up in the Midwest during the 1950s and 1960s, I never witnessed, or thought much about racism. Later, spending most my life as a professor at a small, private, mostly white university, I was insulated from any real awareness of race in America, and might well have denied the painful portrait of our country that Wilkerson paints in “Caste”. It was only when I married my wife—an African-American doctor—that I became conscious of the very different sort of reality that people of color, and most particularly black Americans face. My wife’s 20+ years of experience with covert racism in clinics and hospitals from the central Midwest to the Southwest dismisses the caste v. class argument—if one assumes that physicians occupy the same general “elite” class. As a member of a demographic that comprises only 2-4% of the physician workforce, my wife experienced a relentless and debilitating system of covert discrimination—despite practicing at the top rung of the medical hierarchy. Implicit bias and presumptions of incompetence exist everywhere for African-American physicians, yet little is said about this particular version of prejudice. The lived realities of black physicians are perforce individual and anecdotal. The grind of daily slights and innuendos, the constant and undeserved skepticism about one’s abilities, decision-making, and general worthiness exacts a terrible emotional toll on black doctors. Most affronts suffered in the country’s clinics and hospitals are minor to be sure—nothing compared to the indignities heaped on less privileged black Americans. But those gratuitous insults from colleagues and staff inflict a corrosive effect nevertheless, and the accretion of these small acts of belittlement force many capable black doctors to consider leaving the very profession they worked so diligently to enter. In Wilkerson’s book, I found a cogent, well-written expose of how and why racism is so deeply embedded in the national psyche, and the reason it’s so hard to root out. I don’t know if “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” can claim to be a definitive description of the roots of American racism, but I do know that the book can be transformative if read with an open mind.

I am so disappointed with this book! I bought this book because I am trying to make an honest attempt to understand the ‘other side of the isle’. However, this book does nothing to help me understand a subject I struggle to be open minded with. It is completely LIBERAL, and does not make any attempt to understand the other side. I was hoping for some helpful information and it none of this.

This is a very well written book that compares and contrasts some of the most challenging parts of African American, German, and Indian history. I highly recommend this book for anyone seeking to better understand the long lasting impact of caste ‘systems’ on our modern day. The details offered are simply devastating but yet helps to explain how we have evolved to our current state of being as a society.

Isabel Wilkerson has given me a new lens through which to view race relations in this country. The concept of caste is not entirely unknown to me, but I had never really explores how the system works. By applying the construct not only to India, where caste is an ancient reality, and to the American South, where caste grew out of slavery, but also to Nazi Germany, she finds the essential elements that make caste systems thrive. For all people who want to resist the oppression of the system, understanding it is crucial.

This book tears away the myths that have concealed, from the beginning, the true nature of the United States and its white-majority culture. Why would white evangelical Christians elect a fascist thug, whose lifelong behaviors contradict every one of their Sunday-School theories about the way to live? How could racial identity politics abruptly short-circuit a system of politics ostensibly focused on equity and justice? How could a president get away with promoting such division and hatred that he revives and applauds a heavily armed, camo-suited version of the Klu Klux Klan -- while rapturous white supporters wave huge flags and shout their adoration? Why would whites refuse to take seriously a pandemic that threatens their own parents -- but poses a more severe and disproportionate threat to blacks and Latinos due to the nation's inequitable health care system? Did Americans learn nothing about the human capacity for evil, when they joined the fight against Hitler? This books tells the truth most Americans would rather not hear, but must face if the United States is to survive.

This book has made me realize so many things about the my experiences in America. This is a book that every American should read because cast affects us all. The writing from this book is easy to read and makes it a fast and enjoyable, but deliver us a powerful message. America history only teaches you The perception of one group of people and it is not the marginalized. Many things have been left unexplained in history and this is one of the books that you can use to feel like gap. I am so happy and glad for this book and plan to pass it along to all that I know.

Anyone living through our present circumstances must read this thorough rendering of how hate is propagated in our culture. It breaks my heart to see our country torn apart by ancient prejudices that we can’t seem to conquer.

If you want to know about America's slavery and racial hatred, read this book? If you want to know how America influenced racial hatred in Germany and India, read this book? If you want to know why religious entities, especially holier than thou evangelicals, are wrong to support racist leaders, read this book? In summary, this book explains the social-economic cost suffered by any society that condones racism!

A must read for any american that would like to know where it all started...why racism is not an easy fix issue...why we are as a nation where we are today, and more importantly what everyone of us (black,white, latino, asian) can do to fix or cure this disease. Clue: educate ourselves and radical empathy could be a good start.

This book lays out important information extant in society about which everyone should be familiar. It is an unpartisan statement of unarticulated societal values which influence everything we do as a culture. It is not pretty, but if the country purports to be fair and just we need to acknowledge our prejudices and admit our biases. If we don't know they exist or what they are this book tells it as it is. It's a wake up call for both the Liberal and the Conservative.

I thought I knew stuff. I thought I was fairly well informed. I was wrong. No matter who you are, this will open up your eyes and you will see the world more completely. Filled with stories that will keep you mesmerized and wanting more. It’s hard to put down. I wish everyone would read it. If we want to create a better world to leave to our children, it starts with understanding. Hate breeds hate and nothing good ever came from it. It’s time we change the world. Start by reading this book!

How do we understand the process of caste in the US? We take the time to read this book. To think long and hard about the information in this book and how it effects the lives of millions of our fellow Americans. And we work to change ourselves in ways that will put an end to the caste system in our country.

Isabel Wilkerson, thank you for your extensive work in revealing the deeper layers of our culture in America and its relationship to aspects of other areas of the world, past and present. You gave me a greater perspective and greater understanding. You took me past my 70 years of experiences, which began in Memphis, Tennessee, growing up seeing and hearing so much ugliness, unfairness, abuses, the fear some lived, the marches, MLK's murder and the riots afterwards. You took me past the years-after-that, when I was thinking and hoping things were getting better and before online access and extensive use of video, I was lulled into that false thinking. You took me way past any articles or information on why people are treated unfairly or 'less than'. I am grateful for your great work, Isabel Wilkerson, revealing the fascinating and one really jaw-dropping piece of history, the many comparisons, the connections, and providing words --- when it seems many are at a point of running out of ways to speak about and to resolve the never-ending pain, frustration, anger and hopelessness. Thank you, Deb Honeycutt

Brilliant: scholarly but not boring, explanation of race relations in the US, with fascinating comparisons between US, India, and Germany's Third Reich that will blow your mind!

Caste takes American history and, through exploring parallels in other countries, illuminates our deepest structural wounds. I wish this book was handed to me as a teenager. It is an essential read.

I agree that there are many parts of America that are racist, and that is a tragedy. But the quality of writing in this book was very second rate. It reads like a sophomore college student bashed it out for an assignment requiring so many words.

RACIST!!!

Everyone needs to get this book and buy it for someone they know.

This is what’s wrong with our society today. Well written, with some fact, some fiction...In the end it’s just very polarizing. If you aren’t a Democrat this book is not for you. I really hoped it would live up to the hype. A book of inclusion and a path forward. It did not.

The examples of caste prejudice that Wilkerson proffers are persuasive when historical but when she turns to the present day and to her personal experience she reveals a prejudice of her own that is startling. Instances of this (There are many.) are her unsubstantiated inference that DEA agents targeted her in an airport for no other reason than that she was black and her tendentious misconstruction (as caste submissiveness) of the motivations behind both the solicitude shown by black criminal justice functionaries to the white female Dallas police officer who killed a black man in his apartment and of the forgiveness offered by the Mother Emanuel parishoners to the white man who killed nine of their members. Furthermore, the book is too long. Wilkerson narrates so many illustrations of behavior that she believes to be driven by caste that they become tedious. The anecdotally dense later pages cry out for editing. The truth is that Wilkerson's election to make her case by the recitation of those examples rather than by building a reasoned argument founded on fact instead of her interpretations substantially diminishes her credibility.

Caste system exists in all society. People who are better off in one category whether it is money, inheritance, education or values do not treat others with kindness or openness yet they are critical of others. Civilizations have thrived and demolished across time and the message remains the same, human problems remain the same. To blame Indians for the concept of caste would make sense if the author had spent few minutes to research what it means. The disfigured translation that has been plastered on India and our ideology was ahead of its time and worked well until it did not. Caste is a British concept. Varna system which to a normal unaware person is caste system was created on a different democratic ideology that has since then been corrupted. Author, please fix it.

This book was recommended for a book club. I was done after the first chapter but I plugged on. The author has no real understanding of caste. Conflating US African slavery, Indian Dalits, and Jewish Holocaust social systems is unfortunate at best and historically erroneous at worst. It is superficial, elementary, and the comparisons are not comparable. Surely, there are better books. I returned it, which is something I never do with books!

The depth of the illogic of this book is hard to fathom. I certainly believe that America had a cruel, unjust and terrible system of discrimination against Blacks. Those days are long gone. In this book, Wilkerson describes horrible incidents from the past (which absolutely need to be known) and effectively states that that same system continues today based on ad hoc incidents she recounts and ascribes to racism without being able to prove. She has an entire chapter on the Obama presidency (whose rise she describes as possible because his father’s family was Kenyan, not sharecroppers; I had no idea racists were so discerning and selective!) and ascribes the resistance of Republicans as attempting to uphold the historic caste system rather than being attributable to disagreement on policy. There most definitely is still racism in America. But the faults of the past are not remedied in a day or a single generation. My generation is less racist than my parents’, and my kids’ generation is less racist than my own. Claiming that America still perpetuates a caste system comparable to the 1800’s and the first half of 1900’s can only be done if one is willing to ignore facts and/or simply rationalize away all the evidence to the contrary, which is the entire premise of this book. This book would have had important and valid points to make in 1940. Now, it is simply trying to say that 2020 America is exactly the same as 1940 America, evidence to the contrary be damned. I cannot give this book a low enough rating.

A great book, a necessary book, an educational and inspired and above all very well written book. This book is especially for those who have read about unspeakable atrocities in other countries such as India's bias against their lowest castes, or Germany and Eastern Europe's history of anti-semitism culminating in the Holocaust, shaking heads in disgust and dismay that such things should come to pass, but always far away. Wilkerson's impeccably researched and thoughtful interweaving of these two histories with the United States's own historic, deliberate bias, racism and cruelty towards African Americans mirrors and deepens our understanding of all three patterns. This will be not only a great summer read in this time of change but a book to refer to as hopefully we go on to make change, recognizing the caste system that some of us have enjoyed, while others suffer. Kudos to the utmost degree on this accomplishment; truly the right book at the right time.

This is a groundbreaking book that examines racism in a unique way and clarifies the power structure in this country as to the privileged at the top and African Americans at the bottom. The book is thoroughly researched and 10 years in the making. I love the beginning of the book: "Because even if I should speak, no one would believe me. And they would not believe me precisely because they would know that what I said was true. "—JAMES BALDWIN

As a black women descended from American chattel slavery and a student of black history, I don’t often feel like historians can teach me any more than my decades of research and my experience of being black in America have already taught me. However, Isabel Wilkerson proved me wrong. This book is brilliant. I’ve never highlighted so many passages in a book. Mrs. Wilkerson contrasts the American system of racism against the Nazi system of racism and the Indian system of racism and illuminates that America taught the world a thing or two about subjugating others. I can’t say enough about this book. Buy it and be enlightened, challenged, educated and invigorated to keep fighting for equality.

This book was filled with so much information and many examples of how little we appreciate the myriad ways Black people have been mistreated here since 1619. It does go beyond just racism. A caste system does exist. I wish this book could have been shorter because there was less to write about, but I suspect Ms. Wilkerson could have gone on and on. It was so readable, an so impactful. I’ve recommended it to all my friends, who tend to be progressives. It needs to be read by the many who deny the existence of white privilege and racism in the US. Thank you for really opening my eyes, Isabel.

I can't remember having such a difficult time putting a non fiction book down in the past. Isabel Wilkerson is an exceptionally gifted writer. She writes compellingly about the topic of caste in India, Nazi Germany and America. By placing racism within that paradigm we understand why past attempts at solving the issue of racial inequality in America have failed. I came away from the book feeling more hopeful that racial equality in the US is achievable, if the lessons of this book are heeded. I so enjoyed Ms. Wikerson's writing that yesterday I picked up a copy of her Pulitzer Prize winning book "The Warmth of Other Suns" at B and N. I can't wait to read it.

Valued continuation of special research by a groundbreaking writer/researcher who is impacting the national historic narrative that exposes missing truths and realities.

It's a shame that Amazon's ratings stop at 5 stars, for if there were a10 or 15 or 100, I would rate CASTE with the highest possible. CASTE is a rigorously researched and beautifully written history of an appalling subject -- the caste system in America. It explores the impact that dividing people into castes simply based on a birth trait has on any nation and its people, America in particular. As a white Southerner, I can attest first hand to the damage the caste system has caused and continues to cause in my state. I would hope that every white American, regardless of political affiliation or economic class, will read this book.

As a Black woman, I always felt that Blacks were viewed as being at the bottom of the barrel. The author framed the U.S. social hierarchy n the context of caste; and the comparison she makes with other caste systems is jaw-dropping. My 94 year old mother read the book and said that she could have finished out her life without having known the things she learned in the book. My sister read it and -- like me -- has had to put it down periodically. It is beautifully written, but the truth is searing. Still, I highly recommend the book because the author gets at what is the root cause of the country's view of race.

This book needs to be required reading for every adult and every high school and /or college student! A reader cannot help be learn so much about race and the history of prejudice in our country by reading this book. We may think we are not racist, but most of us are to one extent or another. Not only did I learn that there is a definite Caste system in America, but that it is not as systemized or as visible in other countries; nevertheless, it persists. Readers will discover much about their own prejudices and it is important to look into ourselves in this way. READ this book. It is vitally important information!

Given where this country is today, we need a good historical perspective to understand why we are in the position we are in as a nation. The author makes a very good argument based on historical fact. This book is thoroughly researched and provides the necessary background of why we love "winners" and "losers" in this country. The losers are Blacks, Hispanics, Indigenous, LGBTQ in this country. There is a reason for "otherizing" that has nothing to do biology, but more to do with philosophy, culture and White supremacy. We need this history to be taught, to be understood, and not forgotten or marginalized.

This is the hardest book I have ever read. It exposes a side of humanity that I didn’t realize existed, nor did I want to acknowledge that it existed. I have lived in the protected white bubble of “Christianity” and couldn’t imagine life was really that bad for my fellow minority citizens. Which actually makes me complicit in the unconscious subjugation of those I was taught were “not our kind”. I can only feel a deep sense of guilt for my ignorance and try to do better. The book is very well written; clear and concise. It should be required reading for every high school senior and college freshman, several times! Thank you, Ms. Wilkerson for educating me.

Wilkerson already has a Pulitzer for "The Warmth of Other Suns" and should have probably gotten another one for this treatise. Mixing scholarship with metaphorical fantasias and personal admissions, "Caste" redefines American society through a lens that has existed for a long time, but one that has been suppressed and ignored by Academia, the State and the Press for far too long. You will never look at the United States in quite the same way after reading this book. Warning: parts of Wilkerson's tale are so painful to read, that you may be forced to put the book down in order to recharge your courage, so heinous is this country's treatment of its lowest caste. But this book MUST be read by anyone who believes in the promise of America's unfulfilled creed. "Caste" does indeed explain America's discontents and once understood, will help provide a more equitable path forward for a nation shackled to its unsavory origins as much as it holds reverent, its lofty ideals.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson says racism is an insufficient term for the systemic oppression of Black people in America. Instead, she prefers to refer to America as having a "caste" system. A caste system relegates citizens to certain stations: Lower class, Middle and Upper class. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is one of the better books I’ve read that explains Americans obsessions with race, color and ethnicity. The author compares India, Germany and the US in its approach to racism. Of the three, America alone came up with an almost perfect approach: color. India relies on one’s parentage at birth. Germany went to amazing lengths to define an Aryan race, defining the pure Germans for four generations, and exterminating the Jews to purify the race. America had the simplest solution: skin color: a singular gene that defines us. For most of the country, that rule applies to this day. For example, interracial marriages have only been fully legal since 1967. . Our country has fought change. About 30% of all police killings are black. (They account for about 10% of the population) Read the book.

This should be required reading, particularly now when we are perhaps turning corners and making inroads into negatively established attitudes. This explains so much about our racist culture, and though I was appalled as I was reading it, I nevertheless found great hope in what we can do to eliminate the lessons that has so cruelly been taught. And this isn't just about American Blacks; Wilkerson divides the book into three sections and also discusses the prejudices in the caste system in India and the prejudices against the Jews in Nazi Germany. When you finish this significant book, you'll have a total picture of the insidiousness of prejudice through castes.

There are newsreels from 1945 of conquering American heroes shepherding German town folk through the Death Camps, shaming them with questions like how could you let this happen and what do you mean you didn’t know what was going on. I suspect Ms. Wilkerson would have had someone ask those liberators the same questions about Jim Crow laws and black/white relations in 1945 America. This book provides some answers, attributing it to learned behaviors that are the consequence of hundreds of years of enforcing a rigid caste structure that even today unfairly sorts Americans based on the color of their skin, putting them in boxes that artificially shape and limit their lives. From p. 164 "... the public school district in Columbus, Ohio, decided to hold an essay contest, challenging students to consider the question 'What to do with Hitler after the War?' ... a sixteen-year-old African-American girl ... won the student essay contest with a single sentence: 'Put him in a black skin and let him live the rest of his life in America.' "

This book was very well researched and written in a very engaging style. It contains a condensed American history interestingly pared against multiple caste systems. The experiences described validate the experiences of oppressed people, often giving names to encounters that are indescribable and unfortunately have desensitized us. I have spent many years reading and trying to understand the system in this country that privileges some and puts others at a disadvantage. Even more, I have attempted to understand why people won't discuss this topic and express such hostility when discussions do occur. Caste brings understanding to this area and provides a guide to understanding interactions among and within "the races." Much discussion is about black and white, but this book also addresses people in-between. This book does not resolve our problems, but clarifies them. It provides a historical lens with GPS to the present.

Finished “Caste”, by Isabel Wilkerson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Warmth of Other Suns.” WOS is one of the most beautifully written histories I’ve ever read, and one of the most important foundational books to a sound understand of American history - I describe it as “black Grapes of Wrath,” one of my other all-time favorite books about America. Over the last six months I have heard from so many people newly (re)sensitized to race in America the desire to “hear what it’s really like to be black in America” from someone they know - can empathize with - and respect personally. I’ve similarly heard exhaustion from so many black colleagues and friends who actually *don’t* want to rehash some of the most painful experiences of their lives for the pedagogical benefit of people who haven’t born the burden of self-education enough to move past the 100- much less 200-series courses on American history and sociology. For those looking to (help others) get past “Intro to the black experience in America” with less personal trauma to friends, this is a really solid book. It really helps having the comparisons to India’s ancient long-standing caste system and Nazi Germany’s relatively recent and short-lived racial hierarchy as chronological book-ends or controls in a study of how racial caste systems are created, perpetuated, and experienced by those all along the hierarchy. “Caste” is not as beautifully written as WOS, and suffers from the classic problem of “the plural of ‘anecdote’ is not ‘statistic.’” Anyone who knows me well knows I hate the phrase “my truth”: you can have your experience, your opinion, or your perception, but not your own facts or truth; those are objective, not subjective, and certainly not possessive. That said, reading nearly 400 pages of many individuals’ experiences and perceptions across time and cultures gives viewers without the lived experience of being black in America a glance through the grim kaleidoscope; a lens through which facts and statistics can and should be understood; empathy for what is (experienced or perceived as not) possible for kids of all colors growing up hearing these stories, and inescapably imagining what their part would be if they had lived them. Would I be the hero? The villain? The victim? The cowardly (or powerless) bystander? The traumatized and cowed witness? Would still strongly recommend WOS over Caste if you’re going to read one. That said, for those who want to better understand the experience of being black in America, but who either want to do some of the prerequisite work for themselves before diving into the deep end personally with black friends and colleagues (which, to be clear, you absolutely should do)...or who left unpersuaded, brow-beaten, and bereft of actionable insights by New Jim Crow or White Fragility, Wilkerson’s Caste may be for you.

This book made me look at the whole subject of being an American with new eyes. I've grown up knowing slavery was a blight on the nation, but I'd always thought - when I bothered to think about it - that though there were still issues, racism was mainly a problem of the past. There were still plenty of racists around of course, but these were older, southern, or less educated and we as a nation were moving steadily in the right direction. With the advances of the civil rights era and the election of a black president, we'd finally moved past this. This book is a punch in the gut and a look in the mirror. I remember visiting the Holocaust museum in Washington DC years ago, and seeing a familiar story given new weight, and made viscerally real. This is the right book at the right time, and I hope it promts a national conversation and a move toward really putting the resources forward todoing something so we won't look back fifty years from now, wondering why we still haven't changed.

It is said that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. And Isabel Wilkerson is a brilliant teacher. Her lessons come mainly from the experiences of others, as she did with the groundbreaking book about the Great Migration, The Warmth of Other Suns. She was able to temper her journalist's heart by telling us a bit more of her own story as well. In this format, Wilkerson shares her analyses, drawing parallels between the U.S., India, and Germany. Finally, she makes an compelling case to recognize humanity and eliminate caste as a path forward in these troubling times. Those who are ready to confront some uncomfortable truths en route to building a brighter future will find this book will change your paradigm and light the way.

The author relied too heavily on the Indian caste system to draw 'parallels' of Black Americans being a bottom caste in America. What was also irksome about the book was that she labeled Obama African-American. He does not have ancestry that suffered the consequences of Jim Crow, American slavery, lynchings, etc. You can't write a book about caste and label Obama African American. He never belonged to the bottom caste if America. He is not African American.

This book speaks to me and every person of both the dominant and subordinate castes. This isn't meant to make a person feel good, but rather it's about coming to terms with a past that is still very present and everyone must read this - especially those who don't think they have a need to... The fact that "Caste" has come out now is no coincidence and had it been released ten years ago or ten years from now, it would still be relevant. To the doubters, let me just say there are 56 pages of notes thoroughly supporting all of the quoted studies and anecdotes. Ms. Wilkerson is also a reporter first and foremost and that came through. It's a must-read... I can go on and on but I have to get back and read it all over again. Yes, it's that good.

One of the most brilliant books I've ever read. It's very well laid out, very easy to read (writing-style wise, NOT content-wise). The historical content, the DELIBERATENESS of the way the USA has "othered" our Black citizens from the beginning, is shameful and gut-wrenching. And the horrors of slavery itself, which has long been whitewashed and hidden. CASTE, not race, is what still rules us. It's why despite being multi-millionaires, Black pro athletes and entertainers are pulled over by cops much more often than white people. It's why an hysterical white girl *visiting* a hotel felt entitled to accuse a Black teen hotel GUEST of stealing her phone, and actually assaulted him. Black and brown citizens are assumed to be more guilty, less trustworthy, than random white person, not because of economic class, but because of CASTE. It's a system we all grew up in, were trained in, so the way we behave by default is not entirely our fault. It is also a system we can change. Do we have the courage?

well written and interesting topic. Made me a bit uncomfortable, as it should.

This is an eye opener to say the least! I was horrified to read about how the caste system brought racism into the forefront in this country. So much as already been said in these reviews, however I have two questions/concerns that I need to address and ask the author. They are: #1 - there is barely a mention of the Native American Indians in this book. How do they fit into this caste system? After all, they were here before the European whites came to this country. They were seemingly brown skinned compared to the settlers and were referred to as redskins or savages. They occupied the land from east to west and north to south. They were deemed as on a different intellectual plane than the colonists. Why were they not treated as slaves similar to those we imported into this country. We took their land, killed thousands, herded them up, and moved them into concentration camps called reservations. Is their too much bias in this book towards one particular group and avoiding what we did to the original Americans? #2 - the author related how as early as Ben Franklin we were concerned about different nationalities occupying our lands and changing the nature of our white, English speaking society. Bringing in too many cultural and spiritual differences. Sound familiar? If that was the case and it continued to be a concern, then how in the world did we centuries later erect a Statue of Liberty and invite and welcome the huddled masses to our shores. We promised them life , liberty and the pursuit of happiness as well. This book doesn't explain how these two very different times in our countries history occurred and why. I would love for the author to explain this.

I am a first-generation immigrant, and wanted to learn why this country is so torn and polarised about the issue, to the point of irrational, if you look at it with fresh eyes. So I took this book to learn about the discontent. Well.. The book has some structure, which suggests logics to to the account. However, the structure is just a formality, and instead, every chapter is filled with more and more of the same graphical description of cruelty. This is not an account to learn from, because all it says, in short: it was and still is horrible. No need for so many pages. Apart from political discussion and how left the author is (everyone has a right to be whatever), this is just not a well-written book, and not a helpful account. What it says - I knew before arriving to the USA, from the literature know to the wold (e.g. "Uncle Tom's Cabin").

This is a book that certainly came out at the right moment and is deserving of much of the praise that has been heaped upon it. It is spectacular as history, giving us much background on the suffering and injustices that African-Americans have undergone from before the founding of our nation to this day. Dr. Wilkerson also takes us through some of the history of India and pieces of Nazi lawmaking, especially its connections to similar laws in the U.S. directed towards blacks. More moving than anything, however, are the anecdotes from her own life which show how race still is the basis for so much misjudgment not to mention real harm in our society. If this book falls short, it is making a convincing case for her argument that America’s is a caste system. It certainly could be read that way and Dr. Wilkerson does provide some evidence; however, while the white/black divide can be mapped onto the Brahmin/Dalit divide, the Indian caste system seems much more intricate that anything the U.S. has ever devised. Additionally, the comparison to the Nazi system seems a touch over-the-top, since, as bad as our government has been, it has never committed to genocide of people of color. Also, her belief that the class system that exists in many Western European nations does not more accurately reflect what is goes on in this country (where the power of birth is replaced by the power of wealth) does not seem on the mark. All of that being said, this is a powerful and well-written book. It is certainly well-worth reading for anyone looking for insight into race relations in the U.S. today, as well as some insight into the history of Indian caste issues in relation to race issues in the United States.

I thought, having raised four ethnicity mixed (Black-German) children that I already knew about the slights, the insults, the stopping for ID for no reason, the driving and walking and shopping while brown. I knew about lynching and Emmett Till. I watched Roots and had my 8th grade students watch it. But this book opened my eyes much further, and I began to understand why two of my children have already died, partly or wholly because of heart disease, quite likely the results of life-long stress. They did not have nearly the problems that kids in less progressive neighborhoods have, but it still affected them, and strongly. But I did not know until more recently of the huge numbers of lynchings, and burnings, and torturing of person after person, and even though I had read about it, this book brought it home so clearly, and can I say, so poetically. On top of that, I understood what I hadn't before, that it was fear and hatred of Obama as a Black person who had somehow managed to break through the rigid caste system of this country and become the most powerful person in the world, that prompted most of what followed. It was not because he was a Democrat, or even a liberal let alone a "flaming liberal" (because he actually was very moderate and restrained and cerebral) that he was thwarted at every turn. He could not placate enough, even though he ditched what people really wanted for health care, a public option, and was going to appoint a moderate person to the Supreme Court, and even though he allowed the deportation of more immigrants than anyone had. What he could not change was that he, a Black person, had dared to rise above the white, mostly male voters and members of Congress who felt that all they had to hang on to in modern life was that whites, and especially white males, were the supreme "deciders." This is actually a very scholarly and well researched work, but the writing is so luminous that you feel more that you are reading a novel. I recommend it to everyone who cares enough about what is happening in our country to understand this caste system we devised beginning 400 years ago, and, I hope, would like to see it disbanded.

I just bought this book and have found out that there are 33 pages missing. Page 14 continues to page 47. How did this happen and how can I be sure I am buying a complete book??

Fantastic book for those who want to know! I can’t put it down!

This book is powerful yet mind opening! I think everyone should read this book.

Since “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson is an Oprah Book Club selection with over 300 reviews, 84% of them 4 or 5 star, it really doesn’t need mine. However, having been turned on to this author by one of my favorite anchor persons on MSNBC, who called it an absolute “must read, over and over again”, I think it appropriate to shout my “AMEN!!!” Wilkerson is a world-renowned author and journalist, with numerous other writings, talks and presentations in her superlative résumé. This book, however, establishes her as an ethnographer of the highest order. It is a wide-ranging and thorough comparative case study of the applications of caste in India, Nazi Germany, and the United States. She makes clear the interplay of caste and class, the function of caste as the progenitor and sustainer of racism, and the role of a caste system in maintaining a hierarchical social structure. She investigates the effect of caste on all the other interactions within a society, as well as the impact on the health and well-being of both the higher and lower caste individuals as they struggle to maintain the structure. The book is full of examples both from personal experience, and anecdotal studies of others, and is eminently readable. It is without hesitation that I would classify this as one of the top ten MOST IMPORTANT BOOKS of our present time.

Some would be offended I'm sure with what Ms. Wilkerson wrote. Some can't recognize racism for what it is. Maybe it's white privilege and the inability to recognize anything contrary to that. Maybe they need to read the Epilogue section where the author broke down the difference between Empathy and Sympathy, for starters. The Radical Empathy is for those who are willing to try to understand and walk in someone else's shoes. Curious as to how many would do that. This is a complex work but well-written, clear and concise and was an eye-opener for me. One of the most heart wrenching subjects of the book was how the Nazi's studied and used the Jim Crow system of injustice to model their own plans for the genocide of millions of Jews and others they deemed undesirable. We must take care and anyone who is following the political climate in this country and is honest about it cannot help but not see the parallels. This is truly a masterpiece and should be required reading by anyone with an open mind about our shared humanity.

A huge disappointment. Waste of money and time.

Sometimes a book comes along that not only gives you a fresh perspective or a different point of view, it gives you a new set of lenses with which to view the world. “Caste” is one of those books. Never ponderous or preachy, Ms. Wilkerson presents her scholarly and personal insights on role of caste in multiple societies. The racist history of the United States is not new, but being asked to view it as more an issue of caste gives clarity as to why individuals and groups behave as they do. It reshapes and gives us a better way to understand not only racism, but also anti-Semitism, sexism, homophobia, and other prejudices that haunt our public discourse and policies. It also invites us to look at how caste has affected each of us and what it is costing all of us. It ends by raising the possibility that ending caste is possible but, apart from a call for piercing self-awareness, is scant on details for doing that. In this regard, this should be not the final word on caste in America, but the beginning of a dialogue we will all benefit from having. But all good dialogue starts with listening and so I invite you to engage by reading and listening to what is said here.

Gosh! This was really painful. The injustice from the start of slavery even to present time is too much. I feel like I’m walking amongst demons. I’m was pissed throughout 80% of the book. This is a very educational book which should be apart of every high and college school’s curriculum. As painful as it is everyone must be made aware of the torture and injustice faced by people of color. It makes no sense for some to be complicit in the daily struggle. I was also extremely frustrated the author did not take the opportunity to stand up to the injustice she witnessed and suffered. It took me about 2 months to get through this book because it was just extremely painful and difficult to read about the injustice my people suffered. I hope this book changes lives for the betterment of people of color and those who appreciate the color in this world.

Seems like the reviews from the US are the ones claiming that the book is faulty and racist. Wow. Being a transplanted southerner--now in California, many questions were answered for me that i didn't even know I had. For one, I was reminded of my astonishment when fresh out of college in the 70's, I was offered a job teaching Math in Jacksonville, FL. I had neither teaching credentials nor any math ability whatsoever, (Actually, it was my worst subject). The book asserts that when teachers were hired for Black schools (yes, still segregated in the early 70's), they would hire the least qualified applicants for the job. I now wonder if that is why I was offered a position. The book also explains how Black police officers participate in brutality against blacks. I was also curious growing up how you were either black or white. No matter your ethnicity, if you weren't black, you were white: asians, middle easterners and so forth. You can dismiss her research if you wish, but it rings very true to me and my experiences. I found Wilkerson's research to be exhaustive and her ability to weave the very complex information into a readable format is truly impressive. The book is not easy to accept. It left me feeling that my life experience has been very constrained due to the people I was never able to meet or get to know. Read this book. It will challenge your thinking.

BOOK REVIEW: “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” tied everything together for me regarding the history of America, current events, and racial equity. A powerful book with lots of research explained in a reasonable and practical way for every reader. I have posted many quotes and excerpts so I will not quote much here. I will talk about one of the Pillars of Caste that hit close to home for me, personally. The first Pillar of a Caste System that Wilkerson unpacks for us is “Divine Will and the Laws of Nature.” Not to put too fine a point on it, but a Caste System needs religion to define a few things for us. If you have no God, you become your own god by shaping your own destiny and your view of others is your unbridled opinion...and it is right! 😊 What I mean by that is that you or your view are your own definition of right and wrong, superior and inferior, or better and best. If you are more agnostic (i.e. one who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God), then, again, you are inclined to cling more to the sciences or facts with some reservations around the unknown. Logic becomes an anchor for you as long as your logic is anchored to the truth. But, what is the truth? The beauty in the agnostic and the atheist (the no-God person) is that with enough evidence they can be convinced and, furthermore, they convince themselves...as it should be. The problem child is the people of faith. The above is my personal research and combined experience of over 30-years. This book charged me with seeing people of faith with, yet again, new eyes or fresh lenses. Regardless of your faith, a Caste System needs you as a foundational pillar. Wilkerson goes over this in great detail, so I will ruin nothing for you. I will say that if God says or establishes that people are “lesser than” the people that follow that God, the disciples of that God will establish a hierarchical structure to honor their deity. Mind blown! 🤯 There it was right under my nose the whole time and like a rising stench from the pit of Hell disturbing me for years though I could not put my finger on it! This book sent me back to study the Tyndale Bible and its origins (this is not in Wilkerson’s book). How William Tyndale and his works sent the Catholic Church into a tailspin. How he enlightened many and influenced greatly the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible and many other versions to the tune that 70%-85% of most Bibles today adhere to Tyndale’s translations from Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. An interesting fact is that Tyndale never lived long enough to see his Bible completed. Why is all of this important? If you are of the Christian faith, translations and interpretations of this great work had some biases and malevolencies added that you (and I) may not be totally unaware of that played a major role in setting up the American Caste System. This was my experience in reading this book, based on past experiences, research, my training and knowledge of the Scriptures, my years as a pastor and mentor, and my worldview of living in this Caste System as an African/Black American. Your experience will be different and that should go without saying. Enjoy the read!

This book is an unadulterated version of American and World history, the depraved justification of slavery, the attempted destruction of cultures we supposedly abhor, and the influence we have had in the crimes against humanity not only against African Americans but of all marginalized people in our country and abroad. It is an uncomfortable read, and that is what makes this book a required read.

This review is being written in 2020 a time as a minority I'm really concerned for the future as one. Will I spit at someday walking along the street? I've lived in the suburbs all my life - nice places, nice people, maybe even one can say Utopian. I say that as when some racial slur happens to me, I'm stunned and don't realize after my disbelief that it happened. So I'm seeking some rational understanding and this book explains a lot. There are many reflections contained that are very difficult to read and digest. It may make you sick as at times I felt it and this has not happened since I read the Rape of Nanking long ago. I'm so glad I read this book and only heard of it due to Oprah. I hope more people take the time to learn and understand so we do better now rather than the continuous horror we watch daily before our eyes. This really is a time to be the change you want to see in the world.

I have never thought of myself as racist in any way shape or form, but, after reading this book, I certainly have a different view of race than I did before. I understood that things had once been bad, but I thought that was no longer the case. My eyes have been opened by all the issues with black men being killed by police, but they were opened so much further after reading this book. It’s hard to stomach, but it;s clear there has been and still is a terrible systemic racism in this country that influences everything and everybody, either negatively or positively. I have been able to take advantage of white supremacy without even recognizing that it existed. And, the only way to get rid of it is to see that it is there. The author goes a long way to making that case, and that knowledge is power.

Game-changing in my understanding of race in America. The connections on caste between Nazi Germany and the U.S. are haunting and sobering - not to mention the connections on caste between the U.S. and India. 10/10 “In a world without caste, being male or female, light or dark, immigrant or native-born, would have no bearing on what anyone was perceived as being capable of. In a world without caste, we would all be invested in the well-being of others in our species if only for our own survival, and recognize that we are in need of one another more than we have been led to believe. We would join forces with indigenous people around the world raising the alarm as fires rage and glaciers melt. We would see that, when others suffer, the collective human body is set back from the progression of our species. A world without caste would set everyone free.”

Isabel Wilkerson's approach to the status of blacks in the United States compared to the Dalits in India and the Jews in Nazi Germany provides some comparisons that force American readers to consider their country in a new perspective. Her definition of caste rather than class confronts the problems that do not yield to education, wealth, or cultural awareness. Her examples of discrimination will not be found in the American history books we and our children had in school. They are a shame we ignore and deny. The Jim Crow era lynchings are unknown to most of us, but their reflection in current police actions was a shocking awakening. This book forces us to look at injustice and admit its continuing existence. I have already passed it along to a friend to read, there will be others. We need to consider how our lives can be enriched by becoming more caste integrated.

The Warmth of Other Suns was one of the most important books I’ve read. So, I was really looking forward to Caste. When I previously thought of castes, I thought only of India. Wilkerson posits that the Third Reich was also a caste system. And, of course, the US. In fact, the Nazis used American race laws to design their own system. Unlike the Indian caste system, which had hundreds if not hundreds of separate castes, we basically have two. White and Black, as the poorest white is still above a Black person. Wilkerson uses the first section to set out her premise. By Part Two, she gets down to the history, spelling out how it came to be and evolved through time. From 1619 until 1865, the slaves were the obvious lowest caste. But even after Emancipation, the country found ways to keep the Blacks in the lowest segment of society. The surprise is how current this book is. She not only covers the Obama presidency, but also the Trump election and his first three years. Even the corona virus is covered. One of the most important points she makes is that racism is not just the personal hatred by one person, but a systematic abuse, often so deeply ingrained in society as to be oblivious to those in the upper caste. And that the upper caste will do everything to keep their privilege intact. Wilkerson uses a blend of historical research, individual examples and even personal history to flesh out her theory. Some of the stories are gruesome in the extreme. It’s a hard truth to realize that there’s scant difference between a Nazi labor camp and a southern plantation, both using multiple means to dehumanize the targeted segment . And she rightly points out that brutality actually worsened after the Civil War, as the whites no longer had a monetary investment in the black population. By 1933, there was a black person lynched every four days in the south. Wilkerson is not shy about talking about current US affairs, post 2016. She makes an important point about the narcissism of a group. “A group whipped into narcissistic fervor is eager to have a leader with whom it can identify...The right kind of leader can inspire a symbiotic connection that supplants logic. The susceptible group sees itself in the narcissistic leader, becomes one with the leader, sees his fortunes and his fate as their own.” This isn’t an easy book, but it’s extremely important, especially in light of current times. It’s one of my best of 2020. Towards the end of the book, Taylor Branch is quoted as asking, “So the real question would be, if people were given the choice between democracy and whiteness, how many would choose whiteness?” My thanks to netgalley and Random House for an advance copy of this book.

Wow!! I really loved her first book but I cannot say that about Caste. The first chapter is so biased towards the left it's laughable and I'm libertarian. I cannot recommend this book to anyone and if I could give it negative stars I would. How can we mend our country when you only see the speck in someone else's eye and not the log in your own. So sad.

Part One, Chapter One will be a tough read for half of the American audience. If this is you, push through - you may learn something.

I had an open mind until I read this opening description which posits as self-evident the proposition that: "Most people see America as racist,,,,,". Now that it is obvious there is zero objectivity in this thesis, there is no point in reading it.. It is anti-American SJW trash. I feel sad for anyone that is this brainwashed.

"Unless one reaches for those foundations and tears them out, she warns, caste is likely to remain with us long after our current moment of racial reckoning is done." Hmm, what happens when you tear out the foundation? for almost as long as humanity exists, there has been a divide. black vs white, christian vs muslim, muslim vs jewish, tutsi vs hutu, the list goes on.

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, makes the case that America is a caste system analogous to that of India's but organized on the basis of race. She strongly implies that the 2016 Presidential Election was somehow evidence for this claim and then outlines what she posits are the features of the American caste system (8 pillars of caste): Wilkerson's 8 Pillars of Caste: 1) Divine Will and The Laws of Nature 2) Heritability 3) Endogamy and the control of marriage and mating 4) Purity vs pollution 5) Occupational hierarchy 6) Dehumanization and Stigma 7) Terror as enforcement, cruelty as a means of control 8) Inherent superiority vs inherent inferiority Wilkerson's thesis is ostensibly ridiculous as a description of contemporary America, which is actually organized as a hierarchy of competence where competence is roughly determined by free market forces (any serious discussion of political economy is strikingly absent from Caste), a meritocracy in other words. Wilkerson's claims are also reckless, especially given the media attention given to her work (i.e. Oprah's recommendation). This is not a work that is seeking to achieve the racial reconciliation and harmony of a post-racial America where all races and creeds can cash the promissory note of the American founding and the American dream. It wallows in the racial sins and misery of America's past (slavery, lynching, and Jim Crow) and labels those evils as America's essence rather than the chronic disease that America has always aspired to eliminate. I would be more inclined to take her arguments seriously if she didn't assiduously avoid all the aspects of American life that plainly contradict her or at least mitigate against such a stark perspective. For instance, Wilkerson completely ignores Asian American minorities in her books. She fails to address why in a caste system organized by race with "whiteness" as the dominant identity that Asian Americans are the most educated, wealthiest ethnic group. Of course black/African Americans historically suffered much deeper, more severe iniquities than Asian Americans, but her thesis is predicated on the claim that society is systemically organized to ensure dominant status for white Americans. It's just sloppy to have such a glaring omission, a white elephant of sorts that lurks behind every lines. Moreover, Wilkerson's seeming aversion to sociological and economic data is evidence as she opts for the telling of emotive anecdotes of racial iniquities. Wilkerson is a moving writer; however, the lack of rigor, specificity, data, and analysis belie her true intentions, which are those of an activist rather than a scholar (activists don't have time for pesky facts or to dissect a delicate, hot-button topic in a balanced, dispassionate fashion). There were some aspects of Wilkerson's discussions of race that I thought were accurate. For instance, she does point out that there is no biological (i.e. genetic) definition of race, making it decidedly a social invention. I think this is an important insight, but Wilkerson does not follow this understanding through to its conclusion. Given the harm caused by the arbitrary use of skin color as a historical system of oppression and disenfranchisement, we should aim for a future where skin color is no longer a meaningful measure (a color-blind egalitarian society where one's merit determines their place in the social hierarchy). Despite Wilkerson's vagueness on how this supposed American racial caste system can be remedied, it is clear that this is not the vision she has for America's future or even believes that such a future is possible. I could belabor my critique endlessly, but I think a recommendation to readers interested in this topic would be better. Political Tribes by Amy Chua, although not as directly engaged on the issue of race, is still far superior in its discussion of similar issues, a balanced, reasonable analysis of the tribalism in contemporary American society.

Loved her book about internal migration in the USA before and after ww2. Thought I would be just as impressed by her latest. Instead the beginning is a predictable assault on Trump and shock that the “ over qualified “ Hillary lost. If you watched MSNBC or CNN you have already read the chapter. Fake news written large. Saying that the picture from Roosevelt hospital in nyc with garbage bags as protective aprons for nurses and aides is accurate. It wasn’t. They wore the garbage bags over the hospital provided protective equipment . There was no shortage and even the nurse’s union admitted it. Using the kids in cages as an example of Trump’s cruelty yet the program started with BHO.Blaming Trump for the birther controversy, yet Hillary’s campaign was the origin. Everything is group identity and politics. Yet if skin color is the issue why are Indian immigrants the richest American and Nigerian immigrants to America the best educated? The issue is not skin color but the grey matter inside. Shame that someone as talented as the author goes for the easy explanation.

After reading her last book I knew I had to get this one. This one is better than the last. So much research went into this book and it shows!

I bought Caste on Audible because it was recommended by Oprah, excited to start listening but was so disappointed. It's such a racist book. It does nothing to feed the soul. I returned the book.

Like so many, I was looking forward to reading this book--so much was promised by the pre-release publicity. Alas, I was disappointed. The book's thesis, that caste explains race in America, is not proven, in part because the author appears to not have a very good grasp of what caste is. When discussing American "caste," she stays with white (dominant caste) and black (subordinate caste)--but there is no such thing as a two-layered caste system--such systems have multiple layers with complex rules and interactions. A better analysis of American caste would show the multiple layers of caste within the white community AND those within the black community. Even then, seeing American racism through the lense of "caste" is not likely to be illuminating. Also, I found the book poorly organized, the prose style rather mediocre, and the research rather shallow. There are many many books available that do a much better job of analyzing race in America.

I am 76 years old. I majored in history in college and never had such a stunning lesson in slavery in AM and the caste systems as understood. The revelations about slavery in AM and how it has evolved into a new caste system of haves and have nots as well as worthies or unworthies is incredible and awakening. I have a new desire to see that bigotry, racism gone in our nation of equals. We as a nation cannot survive as a democracy and tolerate inequality, injustice along racial, gender lines. Our diversity is our strength that creates and imagines for future survival.

First off, Isabel Wilkerson can write! And as the title suggests, this book has changed my life. I have a MA in English, and have been exposed to the "race is a social construct" argument and have pushed back against it. As an African American, I can see that I am different from others due to biology. However, Wilkerson (successfully) argues that our situation in American isn't about biology, but about caste, and that American is indeed a caste built on what we call race. She also explores how we got our racial terms like "negro" and "Caucasian" and explains how superficial they are. All in all, I think this book should be read by everyone in this country.

I had never thought of myself as being privileged in any way. Coming from poor working class E European roots I never thought I had any advantages or rights more so than anyone else. Reading this book opened my eyes to the battles and predjudices I did NOT have to fight simply because I'm white. This was a hard read, the stories are so heartbreaking and the parallels to Nazi Germany so frighteningly relatable to what is threatening our democracy. For those who gave this book a 1-star rating because it challeged your world view - read it again. Walk in someone else's shoes for a while. I 'know' I would have helped the author on that first class flight - but now realize my 'bravery' would be based at least partly on the protection of being white. To the author -- thank you for a compelling read and for shaking me out of my comfort zone!.

This book, Caste by Isabel Wilkerson has laid bare the brutal reality of social caste systems in three recognizable instances. The most recent iteration, the Third Reich, is familiar for its horrors. The oldest example of caste is found, of course, in India; though distant and ancient it is still deadly. But the most compelling example of caste exists right here in our own backyard, the United States of America. The painful realization that our nation is built and sustained by a flourishing caste system is startling and cancerous. Read this book if you can stomach the truth of how we have deluded ourselves into thinking we are a country founded on the principal of equality for all. Reality can be brutal at times.

Caste is the most important book I have read in the past decade. It is exceedingly well written but most important is that it provides an alternative way to view race relations that actually makes sense and provides an understanding of why we have the race problems movements such as Black Lives Matter are attempting to address. Essentially, Caste sees race relations not in the light of skin color but in social place. It suggests that we need to view the problems more like the Hindu caste system found in India -- a way to always have someone beneath us. Caste views the problem as being mostly color-blind in the sense that the person in the upper caste cares only that there is someone beneath them, and does not care whether that person is White, Black, Brown, or some other color or race. The argument is that by looking at race relationships through the lens of a caste hierarchy, it may be possible to actually address and solve the problems because the cause is identifiable. Whether you agree or disagree with the author's premise, the book should be read carefully and the argument considered. The only place I thought the author stretched too far was in trying to view the Nazi treatment of Jews during the Holocaust through this lens. The problem is that in contrast to the Nazi attempt to exterminate Jews, a caste system does not seek the wholesale death of a lower caste because the extinction of a lower caste would move everyone down and mean that the caste immediately above the lowest caste would become the lowest caste and be subject to extermination.

This book is an amazing work of history and pain. Every American should take the time to read it. Wilkerson's ability to share historical facts woven with the suffering and emotion is a true work of art. Isabel Wilkerson is a gifted writer and her story needed to be told decades ago. May she continue to shed a huge light on the inequality and the true CASTE system in the United States of America. It is heart-wrenching, it is sad, but it is true.

This should be required reading for every human being. Ms. Wilkerson explores/reveals the caste system that exists in the US by comparing with India and Germany during the Third Reich. This is a heavy topic but easy to read. The author’s generosity of spirit and motivation to unite rather than divide, results in revelation after, thoroughly-documented, revelation about the history of our country and how we have treated one another. I feel as though I’ve been given a gift after reading this book. A gift of knowledge, a gift of seeing a better way, a gift of a vision of a brighter future for our country if enough people will be brave enough look at where we’ve been and imagine a better future together; a future without caste. Oprah bought 500 copies of this book and sent it to CEOs of Fortune 100, NBA owners and other sports teams as well as many other leaders in tech and other industries; all 50 governors in US and mayors of major cities.

Rarely do I come across a book, a work of scholarship rather, that I know from the first chapter that I will have to read twice. Caste is a paradigm shifting body of work that helps us to reframe the ongoing discussion of racism in America by acknowledging how current dialogue limits the full understanding of our social contract. From an examination of history to the true, moving stories (in real journalistic fashion), she takes us on a journey - module by module even - of how our Caste system was built and is reinforced. She compares us with Germany and India and helps us to find connection with oppressed peoples and histories across time all the while breaking down the formations of caste. It’s simply a must read for anyone hoping to approach race / class / economics in America today.

An amazing book! In these days of Black Lives Matter, this book makes it clear why this movement is needed. Isabel Wilkerson takes us from the very earliest days of the US right up to the present moment and shows us step by step how the dominant white caste (to which I’m ashamed to say I belong) has found it necessary to prevent those belonging to the lesser castes from rising to challenge their superior place. It helps explain the incomprehensible support for President Trump by people he despises who see their own self interest as lying more in keeping the caste system in place than in electing a government that actually supports their interests. The book is a page turner and one I expect to become a classic source for study of US history.

Subjugation of a group of people by another, by conquest either by military, intellectual, economical or psychological means, is as old as humanity. If one gives credence to the historicity of the Bible, the Jewish people in captivity in Egypt are known to be the earliest slavery of humankind. Babylonian captivity made the Jews endure slavery another time. Romans conquered many lands and subjugated many people to subordinate status. Islamic conquest after the Prophet Muhammad’s death created a systematic subjugation of Christians and Jews by creating subordinate class of subjects as dhimmis, denied of rights and privileges enjoyed by Muslims. Islam an even a lower category conquered people, the so called infidels with no rights. Islamic conquest of India resulted in kidnapping and trafficking of millions of Indian Hindus who were sold in slavery in Central Asia. The descendants of those slaves form the subordinate people known as Romanies (or, derogatorily, Gypsies), the most abused people to be spread across Europe. When the Europeans conquered the Americas, Africa and most of Asia, the subjugation proceeded in different ways. In the Americas, the natives lacked immunity against the diseases that the conquerors brought in and that, together with European war machine, sentenced the fate of indigenous societies to near oblivion. In Africa and Asia, the European conquerors created an elaborate system of colonial laws to keep the conquered people in subordinate and subhuman status. The Chinese followed the practice of cultural genocide of all alien cultures they conquered and wiped out any trace of cultural memories. The process is currently ongoing in Tibet and Xinjiang. With such a history, Isabel Wilkerson’s claim of an alleged Indian social hierarchy as the origin of racial discrimination in the United States is misinformed and misguided. The author talks about the social divisions only in the United States, Nazi Germany and India with occasional reference to South Africa. Are we to understand that the rest of the world does not have or never had social stratification conflicts? This is simply closing one’s eyes and mind to the reality. Stratification of power in British colonial bureaucracy in India kept the English of pure Anglo blood hierarchically above the so-called Anglo Indians of mixed blood parentage, who were above the Indian Christians with the native-born Indians at the bottom of that unjust social order. It is well documented that the pseudoscience of Social Darwinism in the nineteenth century led the British colonial government towards the classification and pigeonholing of thousands of jatis into four classes and rank them hierarchically. Jati, an Indian social identity, mislabeled as caste, has no religious standing and was rigidized and codified into law by the British colonial government in their exercise to hierarchically rank the people to “keep them in their place”. “Caste” as understood in the contemporary western discourse and by Wilkerson is more of a construction by the Western imagination rather than anything to do with Hindu religious scriptures or Indian society. Motivated missionaries, bigoted colonial administrators and ethnographers with their inbuilt biases developed a discourse of Indian society which has become the standard discourse around the world. Unfortunately, Wilkerson mistakenly places the blame on Hindu religion as the original cause of the racial problems in the United States. Using the rationalization as convoluted and unjust as Hitler’s accusations against Jews, she has victimized the entire Hindu community.

Perhaps there is order under all the chaos in 2020, because this book arrives while there is massive social discontent, and this book does a great job to help the reader understand the long-term aggravation that is underlying the discontent. It is scary to realize that the nazis in Germany used the American 'separate but equal' system of Jim Crow to guide their policies on the Jews before World War 2.` What is also scary is that social scientists throughout the past century were not blind to what was actually going on and wrote about it extensively - even comparing the American system with the Indian Caste system, another artificial arrangement that keeps certain segments of the population in permanent servitude, regardless of their abilities.

I am a complete lefty. Got this book from a friend it is clear cut propaganda, full of bias and many lies. There is some good points in this book. But it stretches truths very far and frames thing in a way that satisfies a bias.

Is there was ever an unabashed book out there that describes the evil of caste and racism and how it divides us this is the one !! Isabel Wilkerson takes us through a detailed and often times emotional journey chronicling the horrors of the caste system in India, Germany and in America! The epilogue of this book is one of the most powerful one I’ve ever read wherein Isabel gives us the mantra of how we humans can look beyond the imaginary lines of discrimination created by caste and race. I encourage you all to please read this book. It’s a rough ride. There were so many times while I read this book that I had to shut it down. I just couldn’t read any further. I kept wondering how can we humans treat another fellow human like this?? I think it’s important we read this stuff so that we know where we come from and make sure we never ever go there in the future!! Just as we judge the past for what’s happening today, we will be judged by the future generations!!

I found Caste "eye opening" to causes of racism. The author put what I knew to be true in clear terms/order with how people of color are discriminated against. I am on my 78th orbit of the sun and have seen a lot of racism from my high school days of attending an integrated school system and our teams being denied admittance to restaurants. As white, I never noticed the lack of people in lead roles of movies or commercials. I laughed at Flip Wilson's quip when he said he got tired of watching professional basketball on television when asked about watching TV shows with black leads. Caste opened my eyes finally. I wish every white person in the United States would read Caste. Great job Isabel Wilkerson.

Understanding the true nature of caste is the only way we can work toward solutions to systemic racism. The parallels she draws between the caste system in India and the rise of Hitler's power demonstrates how we allow our psychic to be manipulated and the evil we are all capable of. Enlightening to say the least.

I’d describe her writing style as eloquent, engaging, passionate and intelligent. A lot of history in this book! Not dry, dull as some books on history, but fascinating, sometimes eye-opening, jaw-dropping, and heart-breaking. This is a work of stunning beauty by a truly gifted writer. After reading this fabulous book, I feel sorrowful for the past, enlightened about the present, and hopeful for the future.

This is the most informative non-fiction book I have ever read. White privilege and sense of entitlement is real. What is horribly wrong is what has happened and that it morphs and continues to happen. The fact that the white dominate behavior and how it treated blacks from slavery forward was used by the Germans and resulted in WW2 is shocking. I don't need an apology from anyone for the past, but, the history I was taught was controlled by the dominate culture and created the narrative they wanted. The truth always come to light and Ms Wilkerson truly brings factual events and the history of white dominance as practiced in America in this informative book. Well done.

This book will make a lot of white people uncomfortable... but, if you are a white person, you should seek that discomfort; you will grow immensely as a direct result of it. Seek the uncomfortable, and be willing to expose yourself to truths that directly criticize you, your life style, and the truths you hold to be self evident as you go about your life. As a white person, I can only say I have gone through this process, and will continue to for as long as I can find others to make me uncomfortable about my privilege. That is how I, and we, will learn and grow to be better. “Caste” is a gift to those who hope to improve themselves, knowing it will take a long time and a whole lot of effort.

So you thought you knew why people can't get along, well you need to check "Cast" out. Here is an explanation of stratification of people which had it's roots in the selfish evil of greed and imagined superiority. Why one group of people thought it ok to rob native people of their land because they were defined as "savages" by the selfish group; to enslave other people because they were viewed as "less than a human" by the selfish group who wanted to use free labor to grow wealthy; why one group of people thought it ok to kill off millions of another group of people to establish their own idea of "superiority"; why one group of people thinks it's normal to expect another group of people to feel they are so far beneath them that even the shadow of that person would pollute them. Here we can see how selfishness has caused many evils to be perpetrated on other human people to establish and maintain an imagined "superiority". All evil stems from an act of selfishness and all Good stems from an act of Love. We are all human people, we all stem from the same genetic origin, we have everything in common except external characteristics....all human people

This book answers a lot of questions regarding race, class, and caste, especially when some wonder or ask me what blacks are so angry about. Being a history buff I know that such issues date back to the dawn of human history and that what we call "racism" is only the most current manifestation thereof. I know from reading history, that similar constructs, whether based on "race," wealth, power, or some other social divider, have led to wars, strife, revolutions, etc. Will man ever learn?

Very disappointed. Put it down after the first chapter. Still trying to figure out why everyone is recommending reading this.

If her premise of caste in the United States is true, how did Ms. Wilkerson and Oprah become so incredibly successful? Consider reading We Have Overcome by Jason D. Hill and Out of America by Keith B. Richburg if you honestly want to find answers for all people to reach their American Dream.

After her amazing success with The Warmth of Other Suns, I was expecting a parallel effort and achievement in Caste. I think the effort is here, but not the achievement. Like other reviewers, I question how powerful the analogy to caste is. But I will leave it up to them to address her facts. All I will say is that any A:B::C:D analogy is predicated upon the relationship between A and B being relevantly the same as the relationship between C and D. I think, however, that the Dalit experience in India and the black experience in the US are sufficiently distinct (if not simply unique) that such an analogy becomes questionable unless explained very well. As I state below, I don't think that was done. My biggest problem with the book is that it seems to be a hodge-podge between first person accounts of her own journey to understand caste, third person accounts of Jewish, Dalit, and the black experiences, fictional or illustrative narratives, philosophical/sociological accounts of the pillars of caste, analyses of current events, and cultural examples drawn from movies, experiments, etc. It is indeed a bumpy ride. As such, it makes the book jarring to read and a bit disorienting. The book can't seem to decide its method--journalism, op-ed, storytelling, or academic seriousness. This is a book in need of clarity in presentation and an editor. While I am open to the analogy of caste, her strange way of proceeding in the book makes it difficult to follow the analogy. The reader moves from black Americans, to stories about Jews in Germany, to interviews in London, and likely thinks, "Now, how is this about caste rather just racism again?" and "What was the point of this account again?" Simply stated, if the book is going to be about an analogy, then that analogy should be crystal clear. And I believe her method precludes making that analogy clear. In terms of content, I think the book is impressive. While not footnoted in a way I would prefer, there are copious references by page at the back of the book. There is no doubt she knows the subject; my problem is that she doesn't seem to know in this case how to explain it to an audience trying to learn.

What a fabulous fresh approach to race relations. By framing race relations in terms of caste, she allows readers to see the issue in an unexpected light. I would wager that nearly all Americans who studied the Asian caste system in their social studies classes were appalled that such a system could exist in the modern world. It comes as a shock at first (hence the string of angry reviews) to be told America has had a similar system in effect for four hundred years. When a caste system is built into a culture, one doesn't have to be a bigot to exercise the privileges the system affords. It's all automatic. It sweeps into its mechanics even the most anti-racist individuals. Moreover, a caste system seems more like the sort of thing that a society could decide to dismantle. It is possible that she has reframed the language for addressing race relations in America for a generation to come.

I'VE READ THE BOOK IN ITS ENTIRETY IN TWO DAYS. I COULDN'T PUT IT DOWN. I WON'T DARE SAY I'VE PERSONALLY STUDIED CASTE IN OTHER COUNTRIES. I CAN SAY THAT I'VE ONLY EXPERIENCED RACISM IN MY OWN. I CAN SAY THAT THE AUTHOR ENCAPSULATED THE THOUGHTS I'VE FELT, BUT DIDN'T HAVE AN ANSWER TO. TO FINALLY GET SOME UNDERSTANDING OF WHY SOME PEOPLE THINK THEY ARE BY BIRTHRIGHT "BETTER" THAN OTHERS??? BETTER THAN ME??? CASTE-THE ORIGINS OF OUR DISCONTENTS, SHOULD START THE CONVERSATION. IF IT IS MERELY A QUESTION OF CLASS, AS SOME 1* CRITICS SUGGEST, TAKE RACIAL DESIGNATIONS OFF OF ALL GOVERNMENT AND IDENTIFICATION CARDS. HELP REMOVE INVOLUNTARY SERVITUDE IN ALL FORMS FROM THE CONSTITUTION. IT MAY NOT BE A PROBLEM OF CASTE, BUT THE WHITE WOMAN WHO CALLED THE COPS TO REPORT A BLACK MAN WAS ATTACKING HER AT THE PARK, UNDERSTOOD CASTE CLEARLY. OR WAS THAT RACISM DISGUISED AS CLASS??? SO GLAD HE WAS RECORDING IT ON VIDEO. RACISM, CLASSISM, OR CASTE, ALL OF US AMERICANS NEED TO BE AND DO BETTER.