Daily we are asked—on the census, at the doctor’s office, by schools and employers and even social platforms—to mark our sex and race, with the tacit understanding that in doing so we are contributing, somehow, to the greater good. But as Angela Saini shows in this gripping reassessment of data and identity, we are sleepwalking into a minefield.

Other takes us from the idealistic 1960s, when categories used to divide people were repurposed to administer equal rights, to today, when they have been twisted back to their original purpose. Governments from the United States to Hungary have narrowed their definitions of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ to curb reproductive freedoms; rogue researchers are mining medical data in the hunt for spurious links between race and intelligence; and lawmakers are using census maps intended to protect civil rights for racial gerrymandering. Latin American countries that once abandoned race categories on their censuses are bringing them back and in 2027, the Indian census will classify people by caste for the first time since 1931. The rise of artificial intelligence is supercharging it all, with China using ethnicity ‘recognition’ technologies to track minorities and opaque private firms like Palantir entrusted with government data to manage migration and health.

Unaware of the risks, we continue to run headlong for categories that serve those at the top far better than those at the bottom. Making an original, provocative case for leaning away from categorization, Saini urges us to consider what we lose when we are placed in a box. As classification draws us further into its grip, the only escape route is the final category on any form, the one that defies definition: “Other”.

Praise for Other:

“A pensive, powerful reminder that each of us is so much more than the sum of our checkboxes.”—Booklist (starred review)

“Bold and provocative, deeply researched and forcefully argued, Other shows how the systems that we wield in the name of equality can so easily become tools of oppression. It’s a vitally important and timely addition to Angela Saini’s crucial body of work.”—Ed Yong, New York Times bestselling author of An Immense World

“In Other, Angela Saini has once again given us a singular, must-read book. Every part of our lives is shaped by how society categorizes us. Saini’s great gift is asking us to ask: Why is this the case? What are the costs? And what if we challenged this system?”—Soraya Chemaly, author of All We Want is Everything and Rage Becomes Her

“Who am I? What box should I tick about my gender, race, caste? Angela Saini has written a provocative, brilliant argument against classifying the unclassifiable human. In gripping, accessible prose, Saini draws from a wealth of research to illuminate the absurd and evil stupidity of institutional attempts to categorize and divide us. If you resent being put in a box, Other will unbox you.”—Suketu Mehta, author of This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant’s Manifesto

“With rigor, humanity, and intellectual fearlessness, Angela Saini shows how our compulsion to sort human beings into categories, even when our intentions are just, can obscure complexity and harden difference. At a moment when race, sex, and identity seem to organize so much of our lives, Other offers something increasingly rare: an invitation to think again. A brave, brilliant, and urgently necessary book.”—Jonathan M. Metzl, author of What We’ve Become and Dying of Whiteness

“Angela Saini’s superb and timely book offers important insight on the effects of classification on human lives. As AI brings categories ever more deeply into the public and private sector, Other is essential reading to understand the impact of its biases on all of us.”—Roopika Risam, author of Data Empire

Praise for The Patriarchs:

“This is an impressive, breathtaking and thought-provoking book which unwraps the concept and history of patriarchy with clear intellectual precision.”—Financial Times

“A new Angela Saini book is always an event for me, and The Patriarchs didn’t disappoint.”—New Statesman

“Angela Saini begins her stirring interrogation of patriarchy by arguing that it is neither constant, inevitable nor unshakeable . . . By the end of this fascinating and insightful book, Saini is optimistic: big shifts in the status of women have occurred in the past, and will in the future.”—The Guardian