Book info

• Title Caste
• Author Isabel Wilkerson
• Year 2020
• Genres Non-fiction, History, Politics

Beyond race or class, our lives are defined by a powerful, unspoken system of divisions. In Caste, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson gives an astounding portrait of this hidden phenomenon. Linking America, India and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson reveals how our world has been shaped by caste - and how its rigid, arbitrary hierarchies still divide us today. With clear-sighted rigour, Wilkerson unearths the eight pillars that connect caste systems across civilizations, and demonstrates how our own era of intensifying conflict and upheaval has arisen as a consequence of caste. Weaving in stories of real people, she shows how its insidious undertow emerges every day; she documents its surprising health costs; and she explores its effects on culture and politics. Finally, Wilkerson points forward to the ways we can - and must - move beyond its artificial divisions, towards our common humanity.

Thoughts

There are almost no words for this one. It was a similar reading experience to Invisible Women - intensely insightful, well written and incredibly well researched, but so frustrating. I had to keep pausing for these moments of revelation and/or anger, so it took a while to get through it. It’s a must read for anyone who wants to understand why the world works the way it does, with particular regard to racism in America but also across the rest of the world.

Rating: 5 / 5