Personal account of the author's experiences and views about India's policies and programs based on the humanitarian work being carried out by the George Foundation since 1995.

"Yesupadam is the story of an Indian untouchable, whose name literally means "Jesus' Foot." Embittered by his caste limitations and the dire poverty in which he lives, he turns to communism, alcohol, and gang violence in his search for purpose. His whole life changes when he becomes radically born again through a personal encounter with Jesus Christ. Becoming a tireless evangelist, his growing ministry begins to target the unreached tribal peoples in the mountains of Eastern India, and dramatic miracles take place as the message of salvation is shared."--Publisher's description

In the tradition of "Kaffir Boy," this international bestseller "captures the life of India's villages and Bombay's slums with an anthropologist's precision and a novelist's humanity" ("Asia Times").

#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.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Original Title -- Original Copyright -- Acknowledgments -- Contents -- Note on Transliteration -- Part One Muli: An Indian Untouchable -- 1 Introducing Muli -- 2 Collecting Muli's Life History -- 3 The Setting of Muli's Life History -- Part Two Youth and Hopes -- 4 Muli's Childhood, 1932-44 -- 5 Bauris "Lift Up Their Faces," 1947-48 -- 6 A Guru for the Bauris, 1948 -- 7 Koki's Abortion, 1948 -- 8 "I Like You Sixteen Annas' Worth," 1948 -- 9 Grandmother Dungi's Death, 1948 -- 10 Koki's Marriage, 1948-49 -- 11 Doctor Babu, 1949 -- 12 Dash Babu's "Hot Disease," 1949 -- Part Three The Reluctant Householder -- 13 Muli's Inauspicious Marriage, 1950-52 -- 14 Traveling with Lakhi the Prostitute, 1953 -- 15 Kia Possessed, 1953-56 -- 16 Grandfather Dharma, 1956-57 -- 17 The White Bullocks, 1957 -- 18 Starvation and Family Quarrels, 1957-58 -- 19 Brother Anadi, 1959-60 -- 20 Kia's Illness, 1960 -- 21 Marrying and Divorcing a Tree Trunk, 1961 -- Part Four Bad Times -- 22 A Successful Business Venture, 1962 -- 23 Muli's Other Wife, 1962 -- 24 Living with Two Wives, 1962-63 -- 25 "We Sit Under People's Feet," 1965-69 -- 26 Transvestites and Prostitutes, 1969-72 -- 27 Kia's Attempted Suicide, 1971-72 -- 28 "The Taker of Discarded Rinds," 1970-71 -- 29 Harvest Tragedy, 1971-72 -- Part Five Interpretations -- 30 Analysis of Muli's Life History -- 31 Conclusions -- Appendix A: Bauri Rituals -- Appendix B: Bauri Marriage Rites -- Bibliography -- Glossary-Index

Women and the Law.