Caste examines American racial disharmony through comparisons with systems both much older and much shorter-lived. Isabel Wilkerson compares the American racial order with the Indian caste system, presenting both as forms of hardened, inherited social separation. She also compares it with Nazi Germany, noting that America’s treatment of African Americans and Indigenous people provided inspiration and precedent for Hitler’s regime. It is a useful cross-national and global comparison, as well as a beautiful book on the personal level.