The Book Prize Index

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

Isabel Wilkerson

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NEW YORK TIMES READERS PICK: 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY • 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 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.

Race & EthnicityRace & Ethnicity · high confidenceRace & Ethnicity101 signalsManual Curation: Race & Ethnicity -> Race & EthnicityLlm Classifier: Race & Ethnicity -> Race & EthnicityGoogle Books: Social Science -> Society & CultureCivil Rights & Racial JusticeBlack History & CultureClass, Poverty & Inequality

Award History

1 wins · 7 total

AwardYearResultCategory / Notes
Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Current InterestMajor2020WinnerSecondary source
Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in NonfictionMajor2021LonglistOfficial source
Kirkus Prize for NonfictionMajor2020FinalistOfficial source
National Book Critics Circle Award for NonfictionMajor2020FinalistOfficial source
Dayton Literary Peace Prize: Nonfiction2021FinalistSecondary source
J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize2021FinalistSecondary source
PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction2021FinalistSource URL pending
View all award history (7)
Experimental book profileGenerated by GPT-5.4 nano · may contain inaccuracies

This is an unverified interpretation of the catalog description, offered as an opt-in discovery experiment—not as bibliographic fact.

  1. 01 Central figures

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

  2. 02 Central places

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

  3. 03 Suggested argument

    No argument inferred with sufficient confidence.

  4. 04 Reading orientation

    45 / 100 academic

    Trade / academic crossover

    An estimate of intended readership and scholarly apparatus—not quality or importance.

Confidence percentages are the model's own estimates. Profile confidence: 45%.