What stands out from the book are Gandhi’s guiding principles rather than his particular causes.
For example, it is impossible to separate Gandhi from his humility, aversion to injustice, simplicity, or quirks.
It is a long life Siddhartha lives in this short book. Hopefully, yours and mine will be as full and varied.
Salient themes include the search for meaning in life, the oneness of all things, grief, love, wisdom vs. knowledge, and time.
Wilkerson argues that many of America’s problems elsewhere labelled as Racism, or Systemic Racism derive from an unacknowledged caste system. She suggests that we, as Americans have an unwritten code of conduct imprinted on us by centuries of history and that this code instructs our assumptions, behaviors, and values.
In order to better understand caste, she travelled to India and met with people from high and low castes. And she studied the Nazis’ attempts to copy American law to create their own short-lived racial hierarchy.
Another sprawling magical-realism book by Rushdie – sign me up!
The Golden House recounts ~10 years of a transplanted Indian family in contemporary New York City; mostly sandwiched between 2008-2018. Rene, a neighbor, friend, and almost member of the family narrates the story as he films the ‘Goldens.’
Henrich argues that it was first the Catholic Church’s strange practices of reducing the power of extended kin-groups in Europe and then various other protestanty-based ideals which further changed the social psychology of Europeans. And then how the habits of European social psychology bore fruit by encouraging higher rates of education, technological advancement, sharing with strangers, and trust in non-related others.