15 Top history books like Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

Cover of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

By: Isabel Wilkerson

4.53

Format: 544 pages, Hardcover

The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken ca…

"The price of privilege is the moral duty to act when one sees another person treated unfairly. And the least that a person in the dominant caste can do is not make the pain any worse."

-Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

"The price of privilege is the moral duty to act when one sees another person treated unfairly. And the least that a person in the dominant caste can do is not make the pain any worse."

-Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

"A caste system is an artificial construction, a fixed and embedded ranking of human value that sets the presumed supremacy of one group against the presumed inferiority of other groups."

-Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

"A caste system is an artificial construction, a fixed and embedded ranking of human value that sets the presumed supremacy of one group against the presumed inferiority of other groups."

-Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

If you liked the history plot in Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson , here is a list of 15 books like this:

Cover of Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

1. Between the World and Me

By: Ta-Nehisi Coates

4.40

Format: 152 pages, Hardcover

“This is your country, this is your world, this is your body, and you must find some way to live wi… read more

Similar categories in Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me book and Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

  • race
  • history
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • african american
  • audiobook
"Soft or hard, love was an act of heroism."

-Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

"My work is to give you what I know of my own particular path while allowing you to walk your own."

-Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

"I would not have you descend into your own dream. I would have you be a conscious citizen of this terrible and beautiful world."

-Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

"You are growing into consciousness, and my wish for you is that you feel no need to constrict yourself to make other people comfortable."

-Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

Cover of Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond

2. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

By: Matthew Desmond

3.37

Format: 320 pages, Hardcover

From Harvard sociologist and MacArthur "Genius" Matthew Desmond, a landmark work of scholarship and… read more

Similar categories in Matthew Desmond's Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City book and Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

  • history
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • sociology
  • audiobook
Cover of The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein

3. The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America

By: Richard Rothstein

2.89

Format: None pages, Hardcover

In this groundbreaking history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein, a leading auth… read more

Similar categories in Richard Rothstein's The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America book and Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

  • race
  • history
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • anti racist

4. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

By: Michelle Alexander

3.77

Format: None pages, Hardcover

"As the United States celebrates the nation's 'triumph over race' with the election of Barack Obama… read more

Similar categories in Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness book and Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

Cover of A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them by Timothy Egan

5. A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them

By: Timothy Egan

4.38

Format: 432 pages, Hardcover

A historical thriller by the Pulitzer and National Book Award-winning author that tells the rivetin… read more

Similar categories in Timothy Egan's A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them book and Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

  • american history
  • race
  • history
  • historical
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • audiobook
"When hate was on the ballot, especially in the guise of virtue, a majority of voters knew exactly what to do."

-Timothy Egan, A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them

"Stephenson had succeeded with an unusual formula for a mass movement: men were the muscle, women spread the poison, and ministers sanctified it all."

-Timothy Egan, A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them

"The governor of Georgia, Clifford Walker, told a Klan rally in 1924 that the United States should 'build a wall of steel, a wall as high as heaven' against immigrants."

-Timothy Egan, A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them

"There are millions who have never joined, but who think and feel and, when called on, will fight with us," Evans wrote. "This is our real strength, and no one who ignores it can hope to understand Am…"

-Timothy Egan, A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them

Cover of Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

6. Tom Lake

By: Ann Patchett

3.99

Format: 309 pages, Hardcover

In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again prov… read more

Similar categories in Ann Patchett's Tom Lake book and Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

  • audiobook
"You can’t pretend this [Covid] isn’t happening,"

-Ann Patchett, Tom Lake

"In the summer the pear trees were fine. In the summer, all that is hideous about a pear tree is hidden by leaves and pears. But once those disguises were removed they were nothing but acres of murder…"

-Ann Patchett, Tom Lake

"Hazel, listen to me. I'm going to tell you something important, you need to be brave.' I then explained to the dog how I have told myself for so many years that my career fell apart because I wasn't …"

-Ann Patchett, Tom Lake

"It's as if someone bought all the diamonds at Tiffany's, and crushed them into dust, then spread that dust across the water so that it sifts down evenly, filtering through the shards of light that cu…"

-Ann Patchett, Tom Lake

Cover of The Covenant of Water by Abraham   Verghese

7. The Covenant of Water

By: Abraham Verghese

4.45

Format: 724 pages, Hardcover

From the New York Times-bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial ep… read more

Similar categories in Abraham Verghese's The Covenant of Water book and Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

  • historical
  • audiobook
Cover of Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Eight Political Wives by Anne  Michaud

8. Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Eight Political Wives

By: Anne Michaud

4.29

Format: 199 pages, Kindle Edition

Why do good women stay with bad men? What if political wives are just as calculating as their in… read more

Similar categories in Anne Michaud's Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Eight Political Wives book and Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

  • nonfiction
  • history
"The political wife came forward and publicly vouched for her straying man. If she could continue to trust and believe in him, the public could too – or so the script went."

-Anne Michaud, Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Eight Political Wives

"For each of these women, the fear of the unknown — of leaving a marriage and casting off alone — may have bound them to a marriage where there is insensitivity, neglect, or even outright abuse. Peopl…"

-Anne Michaud, Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Eight Political Wives

"What we witness playing out in the relationships of our public figures we risk finding acceptable in our private lives. Feminists have connected women’s sexual subordination to their unequal status i…"

-Anne Michaud, Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Eight Political Wives

"To leave the marriage behind is to step out of the spotlight. It means fading into normalcy, returning to ordinary life, perhaps an impossible admission for women who have built their egos on being o…"

-Anne Michaud, Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Eight Political Wives

Cover of James by Percival Everett

9. James

By: Percival Everett

4.54

Format: 303 pages, Hardcover

A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , both harrowing and f… read more

Similar categories in Percival Everett's James book and Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

  • historical
  • race
  • african american
  • audiobook
Cover of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

10. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

By: Isabel Wilkerson

4.53

Format: 544 pages, Hardcover

The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken ca… read more

Similar categories in Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents book and Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

  • american history
  • race
  • history
  • historical
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • african american
  • anti racist
  • sociology
  • audiobook
"The price of privilege is the moral duty to act when one sees another person treated unfairly. And the least that a person in the dominant caste can do is not make the pain any worse."

-Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

"A caste system is an artificial construction, a fixed and embedded ranking of human value that sets the presumed supremacy of one group against the presumed inferiority of other groups."

-Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

"[Scapegoating] blames societal ills on the groups with the least power and the least say in how the country operates while allowing the larger framework and those who control and reap the dividends o…"

-Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

"To dehumanize another human being is not merely to declare that someone is not human, and it does not happen by accident. It is a process, a programming. It takes energy and reinforcement to deny wha…"

-Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

Cover of The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James   McBride

11. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

By: James McBride

4.00

Format: 385 pages, Hardcover

In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new housing de… read more

Similar categories in James McBride's The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store book and Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

  • historical
  • african american
  • audiobook
Cover of The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story by Nikole Hannah-Jones

12. The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story

By: Nikole Hannah-Jones

4.62

Format: 590 pages, Hardcover

The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story offers a revealing vision of the American past and present. … read more

Similar categories in Nikole Hannah-Jones's The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story book and Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

  • american history
  • race
  • history
  • historical
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • african american
  • audiobook
Cover of Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann

13. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

By: David Grann

4.14

Format: 416 pages, Paperback

In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Nation in Oklaho… read more

Similar categories in David Grann's Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI book and Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

  • american history
  • history
  • historical
  • nonfiction
  • audiobook
"An Indian Affairs agent said, 'The question will suggest itself, which of these people are the savages?"

-David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

"The Osage elders sang the traditional songs for the dead, only now the songs seemed for the living, for those who had to endure this world of killing."

-David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

Cover of Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

14. Demon Copperhead

By: Barbara Kingsolver

4.50

Format: 560 pages, Hardcover

"Anyone will tell you the born of this world are marked from the get-out, win or lose." Set in t… read more

Similar categories in Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead book and Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

  • audiobook
"A kid is a terrible thing to be, in charge of nothing."

-Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead

"I can still feel in my bones how being mad was the one thing holding me together."

-Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead

"Counting on Jesus to save the day is no more real than sending up the Batman signal."

-Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead

"life is a wild, impetuous ride. There could be good shit up ahead, don’t rule it out."

-Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead

Cover of Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond

15. Poverty, by America

By: Matthew Desmond

4.27

Format: 284 pages, Hardcover

Reimagining the debate on poverty, making a new and bracing argument about why it persists in Ameri… read more

Similar categories in Matthew Desmond's Poverty, by America book and Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

  • history
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • sociology
  • audiobook
"To live and strive in modern America is to participate in a series of morally fraught systems. If a family’s entire financial livelihood depends on the value of its home, it’s not hard to understand …"

-Matthew Desmond, Poverty, by America

"The rest of us, on the ·other hand-we members of the protected classes-have grown increasingly· dependent on our welfare programs. In 2020 the federal government spent more than $193 billion on homeo…"

-Matthew Desmond, Poverty, by America

"In her book The Government-Citizen Disconnect, the political scientist Suzanne Mettler reports that 96 percent of American adults have relied on a major government program at some point in their live…"

-Matthew Desmond, Poverty, by America

Cover of The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism by Tim Alberta

16. The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism

By: Tim Alberta

4.45

Format: 506 pages, Kindle Edition

Evangelical Christians are perhaps the most polarizing—and least understood—people living in Americ… read more

Similar categories in Tim Alberta's The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism book and Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

  • american history
  • history
  • nonfiction
  • audiobook
Cover of How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint   Smith

17. How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

By: Clint Smith

4.71

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

Poet and contributor to The Atlantic Clint Smith’s revealing, contemporary portrait of America as a… read more

Similar categories in Clint Smith's How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America book and Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

  • american history
  • race
  • history
  • historical
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • african american
  • anti racist
  • audiobook
"How do you tell a story that has been told the wrong way for so long?"

-Clint Smith, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

"Just as he did during the Slavery at Monticello tour, David did not mince words. "There’s a chapter in Notes on the State of Virginia ,"

-Clint Smith, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

"Jefferson believed himself to be a benevolent slave owner, but his moral ideals came second to, and were always entangled with, his own economic interests and the interests of his family."

-Clint Smith, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

"But not enough people spoke about the reasons so many black children grow up communities saturated with poverty and violence. Not enough people spoke about how these realities were the result of deci…"

-Clint Smith, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

Cover of The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler-Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917-2017 by Rashid Khalidi

18. The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler-Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917-2017

By: Rashid Khalidi

4.50

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

A landmark history of one hundred years of war waged against the Palestinians from the foremost US … read more

Similar categories in Rashid Khalidi's The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler-Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917-2017 book and Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

  • history
  • historical
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • audiobook
Cover of How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

19. How to Be an Antiracist

By: Ibram X. Kendi

4.37

Format: 305 pages, Hardcover

Ibram X. Kendi's concept of antiracism reenergizes and reshapes the conversation about racial justi… read more

Similar categories in Ibram X. Kendi's How to Be an Antiracist book and Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

  • race
  • history
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • african american
  • anti racist
  • sociology
  • audiobook
"Racist"

-Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist

"I use “anticapitalist"

-Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist

"Internalized racism is the real Black on Black crime."

-Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist

"But what was the difference between Ebonics and so-called “standard"

-Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist

Cover of White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo

20. White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism

By: Robin DiAngelo

4.17

Format: 7 pages, Audiobook

Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility i… read more

Similar categories in Robin DiAngelo's White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism book and Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

  • race
  • history
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • anti racist
  • sociology
  • audiobook
"I am often asked if I think the younger generation is less racist. No, I don't. In some ways, racism's adaptations over time are more sinister than concrete rules such as Jim Crow."

-Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism

"For those of us who work to raise the racial consciousness of whites, simply getting whites to acknowledge that our race gives us advantages is a major effort. The defensiveness, denial, and resistan…"

-Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism

"How can I say that if you are white, your opinions on racism are most likely ignorant, when I don't even know you? I can say so because nothing in mainstream US culture gives us the information we ne…"

-Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism

"Habitus maintains our social comfort and helps us regain it when those around us do not act in familiar and acceptable ways. .... Thus, white fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of ra…"

-Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism

Cover of Hollywood Horrors: Murders, Scandals, and Cover-Ups from Tinseltown by Andrea Van Landingham

21. Hollywood Horrors: Murders, Scandals, and Cover-Ups from Tinseltown

By: Andrea Van Landingham

4.01

Format: 312 pages, Paperback

The name “Hollywood” conjures up fantastical images of bright lights, glamorous dreams, and impossi… read more

Similar categories in Andrea Van Landingham's Hollywood Horrors: Murders, Scandals, and Cover-Ups from Tinseltown book and Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

  • historical
  • nonfiction
  • history
  • audiobook

18 must-read audiobook books like Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

Transform Your Habits

Between the World and Me

Ta-Nehisi Coates

4.40

Transform Your Habits

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

Matthew Desmond

3.37

Transform Your Habits

A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them

Timothy Egan

4.38

Transform Your Habits

Tom Lake

Ann Patchett

3.99

View all the books

12 must-read audiobook books like White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo

Transform Your Habits

Between the World and Me

Ta-Nehisi Coates

4.40

Transform Your Habits

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

Matthew Desmond

3.37

Transform Your Habits

Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America

Ibram X. Kendi

4.54

Transform Your Habits

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

Isabel Wilkerson

4.53

View all the books

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