Free Audio Book : Caste, By Isabel Wilkerson

In this insightful book, Isabel Wilkerson presents a masterful depiction of an unseen phenomenon in America. Through an immersive, meticulously researched, and eloquently written narrative and stories about real individuals, she explores how America, both today and throughout its history, has been molded by a concealed caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human classifications.

Beyond race, class, or other elements, there exists a potent caste system that impacts people’s lives and conduct and the destiny of the nation. Connecting the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson investigates eight pillars that underpin caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Utilizing captivating stories about individuals—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she illustrates the ways that the insidious pull of caste is experienced daily. She records how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to strategize their outcasting of the Jews; she discusses why the harsh logic of caste necessitates that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to compare themselves against; she writes about the unexpected health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Ultimately, she points towards ways America can progress beyond the artificial and harmful separations of human divisions, towards hope in our shared humanity.

Innovative and enlightening, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is an eye-opening tale of people and history, and a reassessment of what lies beneath the surface of ordinary lives and of American life today.