Our first book from 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.

Isabel Wilkerson gives us a portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched 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.

Original and revealing, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents draws parallels between the United States, India, and the horrors of Nazi Germany. This is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of American life today. 

New York Times review “ I was reading one of the most powerful nonfiction books I’d ever encountered”.

Oprah’s Book Club