The world's leading economist of inequality presents a short but sweeping and surprisingly optimistic history of human progress toward equality despite crises, disasters, and backsliding. A perfect introduction to the ideas developed in his monumental earlier books. It's easy to be pessimistic about inequality. We know it has increased dramatically in many parts of the world over the past two generations. No one has done more to reveal the problem...

"Matt Taibbi's genius is in untangling complex stories and making us care about them by providing striking moral clarity and a genuine sense of outrage. He has become among the most read journalists in America, leading the dialogue with epic Rolling Stone pieces that offer an "almost startling reminder of the power of good writing" (Washington Post). In this new work, he once again takes readers into the biggest, most urgent story in America: a widening...

"A Pulitzer Prize-winning and New York Times bestselling financial journalist and a policy analyst expose the greed and pillaging of a small group of celebrated Wall Street financiers who use excessive debt and dubious practices to undermine our nation's economy while enriching themselves: private equity"-- "Much has been written about the widening gulf between rich and poor in the United States, the pernicious effects our deepening income inequality...

Edin and Shaefer tell the stories of eight families who live on what is almost unimaginable, an income that falls below the World Bank definition of poverty in the developing world.

"The new economics of love and marriage-and who benefits. The realities of single parenting in the US have long carried a connotation of hardship-not just in finances, but in the wrenching day-to-day challenges of parenting without a net. As marriage rates in the US continue to drop, and as single-parent households become increasingly concentrated at the lower end of the income spectrum, it begs the question: what does all this mean for a country...

America in 2105 is beset with mass inequality, poverty and increasingly large numbers of the poor. A fractured America ushers in an authoritarian government that promises to solve these problems by redistributing children born to the poor to be adopted by the rich. Robin, a single teen mother, fell within the scope of the scheme and lost her baby two years ago. A life of factory work doesn't provide much hope until she stumbles upon a group of misfits...

Examines the American obsession with self-reliance and how it has led to inequality, self-blame, and shifted the responsibility for survival onto the backs of ordinary people.

"In the vein of The Shock Doctrine and Evil Geniuses, this timely manifesto from an acclaimed journalist illustrates how corporate and political elites have used planned capitalism to advance their own interests at the expense of the rest of us-and how we can take back our economy for all. It's easy to look at the state of the world around us and feel hopeless. We live in an era marked by war, climate crisis, political polarization, and acute inequality-and...

"In this tightly argued and eloquent book, the preeminent economist John Kenneth Galbraith presents the blueprint for a society that is compassionate to the less fortunate and economically feasible for all. He points the way toward the achievable goals for a "good society": personal liberty, basic well-being, racial and ethnic equality, and the opportunity for a rewarding life. However, this is no utopian approach to the economic challenges facing...

Piketty analyzes a unique collection of data from twenty countries, ranging as far back as the eighteenth century, to uncover key economic and social patterns and shows that modern economic growth and the diffusion of knowledge have allowed us to avoid inequalities. He argues, however, that the tendency of returns on capital to exceed the rate of economic growth will generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine democratic values...