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Caste

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
In this young adult adaptation of the Oprah Book Club selection and New York Times bestselling nonfiction work, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Isabel Wilkerson explores the unspoken hierarchies that divide us across lines of race and class. Revealing and timely, this work will speak to young people who are engaged more than ever with the world around them, or to anyone who believes in a more just existence for all.
Readers will be fascinated by this young adult adaptation of the New York Times bestselling nonfiction work as they follow masterful narratives about real people that reveal an insidious phenomenon in the United States: a hidden caste system. Caste is not only about race or class; it is about power—which groups have it and which do not. Isabel Wilkerson explores historical social hierarchies, including those in India and Nazi Germany, and explains how perpetuating these rankings dehumanizes vast sections of society. Once we learn the reasons behind caste and see the often heartbreaking effects, Wilkerson says, we can bridge the divides and make way for an inclusive future where we are all equal.
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    • AudioFile Magazine
      Robin Miles's powerhouse performance and Isabel Wilkerson's excellent writing are perfectly matched in this stunning examination of the egregious effects of caste systems in India, the United States, and Nazi Germany. The Pulitzer Prize-winning NEW YORK TIMES journalist combines research into the development of caste systems, their societal role, and their connection with racism with examples from her own life. The shop owner who turned away Wilkerson, who is Black, because he was waiting for the "important" TIMES journalist? He's included. Miles's warm, clear, unrushed narration combines passion with a calm that helps listeners cope with periodic ugliness. The lynching of Black people. The charred "dust" swept daily from children's swing sets near Nazi concentration camps. As, together, we build a better tomorrow, this audiobook is a must listen. A.C.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from June 29, 2020
      In this powerful and extraordinarily timely social history, Pulitzer winner Wilkerson (The Warmth of Other Suns) investigates the origins, evolution, and inner workings of America’s “shape-shifting, unspoken” caste system. Tracking the inception of the country’s race-based “ranking of human value” to the arrival of the first slave ship in 1619, Wilkerson draws on the works of anthropologists, geneticists, and social economists to uncover the arbitrariness of racial divisions, and finds startling parallels to the caste systems of India and Nazi Germany. The Nazis, Wilkerson notes, studied America’s restrictive immigration and anti-miscegenation laws to develop their own racial purity edicts, and were impressed by the “American custom of lynching” and “knack for maintaining an air of robust innocence in the wake of mass death.” While India abolished formal laws that defined its caste systems in the 1940s, and America passed civil rights measures in the ’60s, their respective hierarchies live on, Wilkerson writes, in “hearts and habits, institutions and infrastructures.” Wilkerson cites studies showing that black Americans have the highest rates of stress-induced chronic diseases of all ethnic groups in the U.S., and that a third of African Americans hold antiblack biases against themselves. Incisive autobiographical anecdotes and captivating portraits of black pioneers including baseball pitcher Satchel Paige and husband-and-wife anthropologists Allison and Elizabeth Davis reveal the steep price U.S. society pays for limiting the potential of black Americans. This enthralling exposé deserves a wide and impassioned readership. Agent: Amanda Urban, ICM Partners.

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  • English

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