Includes bibliographical references and index.

The man in the crowd -- Part one: Toxins in the permafrost and heat rising all around. The afterlife of pathogens ; The Vitals of history ; An old house and an infrared light ; An American untouchable ; An Invisible Program -- Part two: The arbitrary construction of human divisions. A long-running play and emergence of caste in America ; "The container we have built for you" ; The measure of humanity ; Through the fog of Delhi to the parallels in India and America ; The Nazis and the acceleration of caste ; The evil of silence -- Part three: The eight pillars of caste. The foundations of caste: The origins of our discontents ; Pillar number one: divine will and the laws of nature ; Pillar number two: heritability ; Pillar number three: endogamy and the control of marriage and mating ; Pillar number four: purity versus pollution ; Pillar number five: occupational hierarchy: the Jatis and the Mudsill ; Pillar number six: dehumanization and stigma ; Pillar number seven: terror as enforcement, cruelty as a means of control ; Pillar number eight: inherent superiority versus inherent inferiority -- Part four: The tentacles of caste. Brown eyes versus blue eyes ; Central miscasting ; Dominant group status threat and the precarity of the highest rung ; A scapegoat to beat the sins of the world ; The insecure Alpha and the purpose of an underdog ; The intrusion of caste in everyday life ; The urgent necessity of a bottom rung ; Last place anxiety: packed in a flooding basement ; On the early front lines of caste ; Satchel Paige and the illogic of caste -- Part five: The consequences of caste. The Euphoria of Hate ; The inevitable narcissism of caste ; The German girl with the dark, wavy hair ; The Stockholm Syndrome and the survival of the subordinate caste ; Shock troops on the borders of hierarchy ; Cortisol, telomeres and the lethality of caste -- Part six: Backlash. A change in the script ; Turning point and the resurgence of caste ; The symbols of caste ; Democracy on the ballot ; The price we pay for a caste system -- Part seven: Awakening. Shedding the sacred thread ; The radicalization of the dominant caste ; The heart is the last frontier -- Epilogue: A world without caste.