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Citizenship and Its Discontents

Author : Niraja Gopal Jayal
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674070992
Total Pages : 454 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (74 download)

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Book Synopsis Citizenship and Its Discontents by : Niraja Gopal Jayal

Download or read book Citizenship and Its Discontents written by Niraja Gopal Jayal and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2013-02-15 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Breaking new ground in scholarship, Niraja Jayal writes the first history of citizenship in the largest democracy in the world—India. Unlike the mature democracies of the west, India began as a true republic of equals with a complex architecture of citizenship rights that was sensitive to the many hierarchies of Indian society. In this provocative biography of the defining aspiration of modern India, Jayal shows how the progressive civic ideals embodied in the constitution have been challenged by exclusions based on social and economic inequality, and sometimes also, paradoxically, undermined by its own policies of inclusion. Citizenship and Its Discontents explores a century of contestations over citizenship from the colonial period to the present, analyzing evolving conceptions of citizenship as legal status, as rights, and as identity. The early optimism that a new India could be fashioned out of an unequal and diverse society led to a formally inclusive legal membership, an impulse to social and economic rights, and group-differentiated citizenship. Today, these policies to create a civic community of equals are losing support in a climate of social intolerance and weak solidarity. Once seen by Western political scientists as an anomaly, India today is a site where every major theoretical debate about citizenship is being enacted in practice, and one that no global discussion of the subject can afford to ignore.

Unequal Citizens

Author : Zoya Hasan
Publisher : OUP India
ISBN 13 : 9780195684599
Total Pages : 292 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (845 download)

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Book Synopsis Unequal Citizens by : Zoya Hasan

Download or read book Unequal Citizens written by Zoya Hasan and published by OUP India. This book was released on 2006-09-14 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This survey based study of Muslim women in India seeks to dispel popular misperceptions and stereotypes regarding their status, as well as seriously engage with academic debates on gender and Islam.

India's Unequal Citizens

Author : Kripal Chandra Yadav
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 444 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis India's Unequal Citizens by : Kripal Chandra Yadav

Download or read book India's Unequal Citizens written by Kripal Chandra Yadav and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Poverty, Inequality, and Democracy

Author : Francis Fukuyama
Publisher : JHU Press
ISBN 13 : 1421405709
Total Pages : 212 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (214 download)

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Book Synopsis Poverty, Inequality, and Democracy by : Francis Fukuyama

Download or read book Poverty, Inequality, and Democracy written by Francis Fukuyama and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2012-03 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rise of populism in new democracies, especially in Latin America, has brought renewed urgency to the question of how liberal democracy deals with issues of poverty and inequality. Citizens who feel that democracy failed to improve their economic condition are often vulnerable to the appeal of political leaders with authoritarian tendencies. To counteract this trend, liberal democracies must establish policies that will reduce socioeconomic disparities without violating liberal principles, interfering with economic growth, or ignoring the consensus of the people. Poverty, Inequality, and Democracy addresses the complicated philosophical and moral issues surrounding the distribution of economic goods in free societies as well as the empirical relationships between democratization and trends in poverty and inequality. This volume also discusses the variety of welfare-state policies that have been adopted in different regions of the world. The book’s distinguished group of contributors provides a succinct synthesis of the scholarship on this topic. They address such broad issues as whether democracy promotes inequality, the socioeconomic factors that drive democratic failure, and the basic choices that societies must make as they decide how to deal with inequality. Chapters focus on particular regions or countries, examining how problems of poverty and inequality have been handled (or mishandled) by newer democracies in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia. Poverty, Inequality, and Democracy will prove vital reading for all students of world politics, political economy, and democracy’s global prospects. Contributors: Dan Banik, Nancy Bermeo, Dorothee Bohle, Nathan Converse, Alberto Díaz-Cayeros, Francis Fukuyama, Béla Greskovits, Stephan Haggard, Ethan B. Kapstein, Robert R. Kaufman, Taekyoon Kim, Huck-Ju Kwon, Jooha Lee, Peter Lewis, Beatriz Magaloni, Mitchell A. Orenstein, Marc F. Plattner, Charles Simkins, Alejandro Toledo, Ilcheong Yi

Communities in Action

Author : National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher : National Academies Press
ISBN 13 : 0309452961
Total Pages : 583 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (94 download)

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Book Synopsis Communities in Action by : National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Download or read book Communities in Action written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2017-04-27 with total page 583 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

The Caste of Merit

Author : Ajantha Subramanian
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 067424348X
Total Pages : 385 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (742 download)

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Book Synopsis The Caste of Merit by : Ajantha Subramanian

Download or read book The Caste of Merit written by Ajantha Subramanian and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2019-12-03 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the language of “merit” makes caste privilege invisible in contemporary India. Just as Americans least disadvantaged by racism are most likely to endorse their country as post‐racial, Indians who have benefited from their upper-caste affiliation rush to declare their country post‐caste. In The Caste of Merit, Ajantha Subramanian challenges this comfortable assumption by illuminating the controversial relationships among technical education, caste formation, and economic stratification in modern India. Through in-depth study of the elite Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs)—widely seen as symbols of national promise—she reveals the continued workings of upper-caste privilege within the most modern institutions. Caste has not disappeared in India but instead acquired a disturbing invisibility—at least when it comes to the privileged. Only the lower castes invoke their affiliation in the political arena, to claim resources from the state. The upper castes discard such claims as backward, embarrassing, and unfair to those who have earned their position through hard work and talent. Focusing on a long history of debates surrounding access to engineering education, Subramanian argues that such defenses of merit are themselves expressions of caste privilege. The case of the IITs shows how this ideal of meritocracy serves the reproduction of inequality, ensuring that social stratification remains endemic to contemporary democracies.

Nightmarch

Author : Alpa Shah
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022659033X
Total Pages : 357 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (265 download)

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Book Synopsis Nightmarch by : Alpa Shah

Download or read book Nightmarch written by Alpa Shah and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-04-23 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2020 Association for Political and Legal Anthropology Book Prize Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize Shortlisted for the New India Foundation Book Prize Anthropologist Alpa Shah found herself in an active platoon of Naxalites—one of the longest-running guerrilla insurgencies in the world. The only woman, and the only person without a weapon, she walked alongside the militants for seven nights across 150 miles of dense, hilly forests in eastern India. Nightmarch is the riveting story of Shah's journey, grounded in her years of living with India’s tribal people, an eye-opening exploration of the movement’s history and future and a powerful contemplation of how disadvantaged people fight back against unjust systems in today’s world. The Naxalites have fought for a communist society for the past fifty years, caught in a conflict that has so far claimed at least forty thousand lives. Yet surprisingly little is known about these fighters in the West. Framed by the Indian state as a deadly terrorist group, the movement is actually made up of Marxist ideologues and lower-caste and tribal combatants, all of whom seek to overthrow a system that has abused them for decades. In Nightmarch, Shah shares some of their gritty untold stories: here we meet a high-caste leader who spent almost thirty years underground, a young Adivasi foot soldier, and an Adivasi youth who defected. Speaking with them and living for years with villagers in guerrilla strongholds, Shah has sought to understand why some of India’s poor have shunned the world’s largest democracy and taken up arms to fight for a fairer society—and asks whether they might be undermining their own aims. By shining a light on this largely ignored corner of the world, Shah raises important questions about the uncaring advance of capitalism and offers a compelling reflection on dispossession and conflict at the heart of contemporary India.

Living Class in Urban India

Author : Sara Dickey
Publisher : Rutgers University Press
ISBN 13 : 0813583942
Total Pages : 283 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (135 download)

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Book Synopsis Living Class in Urban India by : Sara Dickey

Download or read book Living Class in Urban India written by Sara Dickey and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2016-07-14 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many Americans still envision India as rigidly caste-bound, locked in traditions that inhibit social mobility. In reality, class mobility has long been an ideal, and today globalization is radically transforming how India’s citizens perceive class. Living Class in Urban India examines a nation in flux, bombarded with media images of middle-class consumers, while navigating the currents of late capitalism and the surges of inequality they can produce. Anthropologist Sara Dickey puts a human face on the issue of class in India, introducing four people who live in the “second-tier” city of Madurai: an auto-rickshaw driver, a graphic designer, a teacher of high-status English, and a domestic worker. Drawing from over thirty years of fieldwork, she considers how class is determined by both subjective perceptions and objective conditions, documenting Madurai residents’ palpable day-to-day experiences of class while also tracking their long-term impacts. By analyzing the intertwined symbolic and economic importance of phenomena like wedding ceremonies, religious practices, philanthropy, and loan arrangements, Dickey’s study reveals the material consequences of local class identities. Simultaneously, this gracefully written book highlights the poignant drive for dignity in the face of moralizing class stereotypes. Through extensive interviews, Dickey scrutinizes the idioms and commonplaces used by residents to justify class inequality and, occasionally, to subvert it. Along the way, Living Class in Urban India reveals the myriad ways that class status is interpreted and performed, embedded in everything from cell phone usage to religious worship.

In the Public's Interest

Author : Gautam Bhan
Publisher : University of Georgia Press
ISBN 13 : 082036973X
Total Pages : 309 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (23 download)

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Book Synopsis In the Public's Interest by : Gautam Bhan

Download or read book In the Public's Interest written by Gautam Bhan and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2016-11-15 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book studies the recent legacy of basti “evictions” in Delhi—mass clearings of some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods—as a way to understand how the urban poor are disenfranchised in the name of “public interest” and, in the case of Delhi, by the very courts meant to empower and protect them. Studying bastes, says Gautam Bhan, provokes six clear lines of inquiry applicable to studies of urbanism across the global south. The first is the long-standing debate over urban informality and illegality: the debate’s impact on conceptions and practices of urban planning, the production of space, and the regulation of value. The second is a set of debates on “good governance,” read through their intersections with ideas of “planned development” within rapidly transforming cities. The third is the political field of urban citizenship and the possibilities of substantive rights and belonging in the city. The fourth is resistance and the ability of a city’s subaltern residents to struggle against exclusion. The two remaining inquiries both cut across and unify the first four. One of these is the role of the judiciary and the relationships between law and urbanism in cities of the global south. The other is the relationship between democracy and inequality in the city. What emerges about Delhi in particular are a set of new modes for the reproduction of inequality. When rights are lost, citizenship is unequal and differentiated, the promise of development is refused, and poverty and inequality are reproduced and deepened. The task at hand, says Bhan, is not just to explain evictions but also to listen to what they are telling us about “the city that is as well as the city that can be.”

Capital in the Twenty-First Century

Author : Thomas Piketty
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674979850
Total Pages : 817 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (749 download)

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Book Synopsis Capital in the Twenty-First Century by : Thomas Piketty

Download or read book Capital in the Twenty-First Century written by Thomas Piketty and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-14 with total page 817 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. But satisfactory answers have been hard to find for lack of adequate data and clear guiding theories. In this work the author analyzes a unique collection of data from twenty countries, ranging as far back as the eighteenth century, to uncover key economic and social patterns. His findings transform debate and set the agenda for the next generation of thought about wealth and inequality. He shows that modern economic growth and the diffusion of knowledge have allowed us to avoid inequalities on the apocalyptic scale predicted by Karl Marx. But we have not modified the deep structures of capital and inequality as much as we thought in the optimistic decades following World War II. The main driver of inequality--the tendency of returns on capital to exceed the rate of economic growth--today threatens to generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine democratic values if political action is not taken. But economic trends are not acts of God. Political action has curbed dangerous inequalities in the past, the author says, and may do so again. This original work reorients our understanding of economic history and confronts us with sobering lessons for today.

Unequal Freedom

Author : Evelyn Nakano GLENN
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780674037649
Total Pages : 326 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (376 download)

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Book Synopsis Unequal Freedom by : Evelyn Nakano GLENN

Download or read book Unequal Freedom written by Evelyn Nakano GLENN and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The inequalities that persist in America have deep historical roots. Evelyn Nakano Glenn untangles this complex history in a unique comparative regional study from the end of Reconstruction to the eve of World War II. During this era the country experienced enormous social and economic changes with the abolition of slavery, rapid territorial expansion, and massive immigration, and struggled over the meaning of free labor and the essence of citizenship as people who previously had been excluded sought the promise of economic freedom and full political rights. After a lucid overview of the concepts of the free worker and the independent citizen at the national level, Glenn vividly details how race and gender issues framed the struggle over labor and citizenship rights at the local level between blacks and whites in the South, Mexicans and Anglos in the Southwest, and Asians and haoles (the white planter class) in Hawaii. She illuminates the complex interplay of local and national forces in American society and provides a dynamic view of how labor and citizenship were defined, enforced, and contested in a formative era for white-nonwhite relations in America.

Broken People

Author : Smita Narula
Publisher : Human Rights Watch
ISBN 13 : 9781564322289
Total Pages : 340 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (222 download)

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Book Synopsis Broken People by : Smita Narula

Download or read book Broken People written by Smita Narula and published by Human Rights Watch. This book was released on 1999 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Women and the Law.

An Uncertain Glory

Author : Jean Drèze
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1400848776
Total Pages : 453 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (8 download)

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Book Synopsis An Uncertain Glory by : Jean Drèze

Download or read book An Uncertain Glory written by Jean Drèze and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-08-11 with total page 453 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why India's problems won't be solved by rapid economic growth alone When India became independent in 1947 after two centuries of colonial rule, it immediately adopted a firmly democratic political system, with multiple parties, freedom of speech, and extensive political rights. The famines of the British era disappeared, and steady economic growth replaced the economic stagnation of the Raj. The growth of the Indian economy quickened further over the last three decades and became the second fastest among large economies. Despite a recent dip, it is still one of the highest in the world. Maintaining rapid as well as environmentally sustainable growth remains an important and achievable goal for India. In An Uncertain Glory, two of India's leading economists argue that the country's main problems lie in the lack of attention paid to the essential needs of the people, especially of the poor, and often of women. There have been major failures both to foster participatory growth and to make good use of the public resources generated by economic growth to enhance people's living conditions. There is also a continued inadequacy of social services such as schooling and medical care as well as of physical services such as safe water, electricity, drainage, transportation, and sanitation. In the long run, even the feasibility of high economic growth is threatened by the underdevelopment of social and physical infrastructure and the neglect of human capabilities, in contrast with the Asian approach of simultaneous pursuit of economic growth and human development, as pioneered by Japan, South Korea, and China. In a democratic system, which India has great reason to value, addressing these failures requires not only significant policy rethinking by the government, but also a clearer public understanding of the abysmal extent of social and economic deprivations in the country. The deep inequalities in Indian society tend to constrict public discussion, confining it largely to the lives and concerns of the relatively affluent. Drèze and Sen present a powerful analysis of these deprivations and inequalities as well as the possibility of change through democratic practice.

The Other One Percent

Author : Sanjoy Chakravorty
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190648740
Total Pages : 385 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (96 download)

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Book Synopsis The Other One Percent by : Sanjoy Chakravorty

Download or read book The Other One Percent written by Sanjoy Chakravorty and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Other One Percent, Sanjoy Chakravorty, Devesh Kapur, and Nirvikar Singh provide the first authoritative and systematic overview of South Asians living in the United States.

Unshackling India

Author : Ajay Chhibber
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 9354890059
Total Pages : 414 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (548 download)

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Book Synopsis Unshackling India by : Ajay Chhibber

Download or read book Unshackling India written by Ajay Chhibber and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-11-29 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As India enters its seventy-fifth year of independence, conventional policy is unlikely to combat the breadth of its economic challenges. Across a range of areas-human capital, technology, agriculture, finance, trade, public service delivery and more-new ideas must now be on the table. The COVID-19 pandemic has not only cost India many lives and livelihoods, it has also exposed major structural weaknesses in the economy. A huge farm and jobs crisis, rising and massive inequalities, tepid investment growth, and chronic banking sector challenges have plagued the economy, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. It has also exposed the limitations of the Indian state, which tries to control too much-and ends up stifling the economy and the inherent energies of its young population. Climate change is no longer a distant threat, while disruptive technology has huge implications for India's demographic dividend. In addition, the dangerous lurch towards majoritarianism will cast its shadow on India's pursuit of prosperity for all. Unshackling India examines the question: Can India use the next twenty-five years, when it will reach the hundredth year of independence, to restructure not only its economy but rejuvenate its democratic energy and unshackle its potential-to become a genuinely developed economy by 2047? The book argues that India can foster a prosperous and inclusive economy if it sets its mind to it, acknowledges the hard truths, and lays out the clear choices and new ideas India must adopt towards that end.

Uneven Odds

Author : Divya Vaid
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199093644
Total Pages : 278 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (99 download)

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Book Synopsis Uneven Odds by : Divya Vaid

Download or read book Uneven Odds written by Divya Vaid and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-17 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focussing on patterns of intergenerational stability, this book traces the unequal structures of opportunity in India. The author addresses questions and approaches towards social mobility (or the lack thereof) through interactions between social class, caste, and gender while adopting a rural–urban perspective, capturing changes over time, and the implications of social mobility on a national scale. This book plugs in crucial gaps in the research on social mobility, which has been marked by the lack of precision regarding the extent of mobility in contemporary India. Using a broad lens of both caste and class, this up-to-date statistical analysis, which uses national-level datasets and advanced quantitative methods, enriches the sociological as well as the anthropological literature, while also locating India within the larger context of social mobility research in the industrialized and industrializing world.

Caste

Author : Isabel Wilkerson
Publisher : Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN 13 : 0593230272
Total Pages : 545 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (932 download)

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Book Synopsis Caste by : Isabel Wilkerson

Download or read book Caste written by Isabel Wilkerson and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2023-02-14 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • “An instant American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions—now with a new Afterword by the author. #1 NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR: Time ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, O: The Oprah Magazine, NPR, Bloomberg, The Christian Science Monitor, New York Post, The New York Public Library, Fortune, Smithsonian Magazine, Marie Claire, Slate, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews Winner of the Carl Sandberg Literary Award • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • National Book Award Longlist • National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist • Dayton Literary Peace Prize Finalist • PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction Finalist • PEN/Jean Stein Book Award Longlist • Kirkus Prize Finalist “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, and beautifully written 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 outcasting 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. Original and revealing, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of American life today.