Caste

Caste: The Origins of our Discontents

By Isabel Wilkerson

 

New York Times Book Review, July 31, 2020  https://nyti.ms/2Xfu0wc

Dwight Garner’s BR begins with these paragraphs: A critic shouldn’t often deal in superlatives.
He or she is here to explicate, to expand context and to make fine distinctions. But sometimes
a reviewer will shout as if into a mountaintop megaphone. I recently came upon William
Kennedy’s review of “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” which he called “the first piece of
literature since the Book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race.”
Kennedy wasn’t far off.

I had these thoughts while reading Isabel Wilkerson’s new book, “Caste: The Origins of Our
Discontents.” Caste is an extraordinary document, one that strikes me as an instant American
classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far. It
made the back of my neck prickle from its first pages, and that feeling never went away.

Wilkerson is an amazing storyteller. This book is a virtuoso performance. It’s important for any
of us living in the United States, indeed any of us living in the year 2020.  These notes do not
supplant reading the book, but they may serve as a guide to some busy people.

 

DJE's GoogleDocs Notes.