Caste
The International Bestseller
Published on 14. February 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
528 pages
978-0-14-199546-5 (ISBN)
Description
THE TIME NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR | #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
"Powerful and timely ... I cannot recommend it strongly enough" - Barack Obama
Beyond race or class, our lives are defined by a powerful, unspoken system of divisions. In Caste, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson provides a profound, eye-opening portrait of this hidden phenomenon. This is the story of how our world was shaped by caste, and how its rigid, arbitrary hierarchies still divide us today.
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 we can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.
'Required reading for all of humanity' Oprah Winfrey
"If you haven't read it yet, you absolutely must." - Edward Enninful, Vogue
'An instant American classic' Dwight Garner, The New York Times
"Powerful and timely ... I cannot recommend it strongly enough" - Barack Obama
Beyond race or class, our lives are defined by a powerful, unspoken system of divisions. In Caste, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson provides a profound, eye-opening portrait of this hidden phenomenon. This is the story of how our world was shaped by caste, and how its rigid, arbitrary hierarchies still divide us today.
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 we can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.
'Required reading for all of humanity' Oprah Winfrey
"If you haven't read it yet, you absolutely must." - Edward Enninful, Vogue
'An instant American classic' Dwight Garner, The New York Times
Reviews / Votes
If you haven't read Caste yet, you absolutely must -- Edward Enninful * Vogue * Powerful and timely... I cannot recommend it strongly enough -- Barack Obama Such is Wilkerson's gift as a writer that she leaves you looking at the world differently -- Afua Hirsch * Vogue * Elegant and persuasive... Caste will spur readers to think and to feel in equal measure -- Kwame Anthony Appiah * New York Times Book Review * Probably the most important piece of non-fiction published this year -- Sarah Hughes * i News * A surprising and arresting wide-angle reframing... Her epilogue feels like a prayer for a country in pain, offering new directions through prophetic new language -- Bilal Qureshi * Washington Post * An expansive interrogation of racism, institutionalised inequality and injustice... This is an American reckoning and so it should be... It is a painfully resonant book and could not have come at a more urgent time -- Fatima Bhutto * Guardian * Persuasive and unsettling... The case Wilkerson puts forward is inspiring and hopeful... caste can be dismantled, setting everyone free -- Ashish Ghadiali * Observer * Important and timely... If repudiation of past assumptions is the first step towards healing, Wilkerson's book offers a powerful frame for this. It is essential reading for anybody who feels angry, guilty or threatened by the tangled issue of "race" in America today -- Gillian Tett * Financial Times * Magisterial... [Wilkerson's] reporting is nimble and her sentences exquisite. But the real power of Caste lies tucked within the stories she strings together like pearls... Caste is a luminous read, bearing its own torch of righteous wrath in a diamond-hard prose that will be admired and studied by future generations of journalists -- Hamilton Cain * Star Tribune *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 196 mm
Width: 126 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
364 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-14-199546-5 (9780141995465)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
08/2020
1st Edition
Penguin Books Ltd
€11.99
Available for download
Person
Isabel Wilkerson, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Humanities Medal, is the author of the critically acclaimed New York Times bestseller The Warmth of Other Suns. Her debut work won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction and was included in Time's 10 Best Nonfiction Books of the 2010s and in The New York Times's list of the Best Nonfiction of All Time. She has taught at Princeton, Emory, and Boston Universities and has lectured at more than two hundred other colleges and universities across the United States and in Europe and Asia.