The Spirit Level

Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better

Recommended by Danny Dorling, and 1 others. See all reviews

Ranked #34 in Development Economics, Ranked #72 in Sociologysee more rankings.

A groundbreaking work on the root cause of our ills, which is changing the way politicians think. Why do we mistrust people more in the UK than in Japan? Why do Americans have higher rates of teenage pregnancy than the French? What makes the Swedish thinner than the Greeks? The answer: inequality. This groundbreaking book, based on years of research, provides hard evidence to show how almost everything—-from life expectancy to depression levels, violence to illiteracy-—is affected not by how wealthy a society is, but how equal it is. Urgent, provocative and genuinely uplifting, The Spirit... more

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Danny Dorling What I liked especially about The Spirit Level is the way it builds a case that inequality is phenomenally dysfunctional. (Source)


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