“Every state is different. Each one a state of possibility, with its own customs and way of doing things. Moving through them, you’ll see the breadth of your country before your final stop.”

So says Lumbley, a station agent, to Cora and Caesar just before they board their first train on the Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad, in Colson Whitehead’s vividly imagined world, is real. There are tracks, trains and hidden stations in underground tunnels.

Strangely, not much attention is paid to the underground railroad itself. It’s tunnels remain a mystery, dark and unseen, their construction an enigma. They are largely a way to convey Cora from one state to the next. Lumbley remains true to his word: each state is a possibility. Each state represents a different answer to the questions that slavery posed (and still poses) for the American people.

As Cora explores each of these states, she moves step by step away from the slavery into which she was born, facing disillusionment and hope, encountering enemies and friends and getting more of a sense of herself and the country in which she lives. In one sense, Cora could be seen as an actor in a “living museum” (and this is actually one of the jobs she takes on during her journeys), stage managed by Coulson. While Coulson cheekily admits to this, he also invests Cora with enough character and sense of herself to make genuinely compelling.

Other characters in the book would be little more than actors in a living museum if it were not for the interstitial chapters that explore these characters’ history and motivations. These chapters flesh out the characters and involve the reader in more than just an exploration of ideas and ideologies. The Underground Railroad the book is much more human than other books that set out to explore a set of ideas. It places those ideas firmly in the context of what it means to be human; what it means to be an individual with hopes and dreams.

Nevertheless, the ideas represented here have never been more important. The Underground Railroad is a Gulliver’s Travels not only of the antebellum American South but also for our times. The ideas explored in many of the states that Cora visits unfortunately still have currency with the rise of the alt-right in the United States. This is a book that should be widely read and discussed in order to counter not only ideologies of hate, but also to counter the way those ideologies can easily become the norm: the way they can become a part of our everyday, supported without question or reinforced by fear. It is also an exploration of what can happen if we manage to resist those ideologies, and exactly what resistance entails: perseverance, sacrifice and a firm belief in our shared humanity. I would personally love to see this book taught in every high school in America.