Social Classes & Economic Disparity

The Suez Crisis of 1956 was Britain's 20th-century nadir, the moment when the once superpower was bullied into retreat. In the immortal words of former US Secretary of State Dean Acheson, 'Britain has lost an empire and not yet found a role.'....

A unique and fascinating insight into the life of an accidental duchess....

In this investigation, Owen Jones explores how the working class has gone from 'salt of the earth' to 'scum of the earth.' Exposing the ignorance and prejudice at the heart of the caricature....

A graphic and biting polemic that still holds a fierce political relevance and impact despite being written over half a century ago....

The book that has been waiting to be written—how Ireland’s housing policy has locked an entire generation out of the housing market and what we should do about it.....

In The Journey of Humanity, Oded Galor offers a revelatory explanation of how humanity became, only very recently, the unique species to have escaped a life of subsistence poverty, enjoying previously unthinkable wealth and longevity....

Based on nearly a decade of reporting, Invisible Child follows eight dramatic years in the life of Dasani Coates, a child with an imagination as soaring as the skyscrapers near her Brooklyn homeless shelter....

From poverty and policing, homelessness and overrun prisons to Grenfell and hostile environments, Britain has long been failing those who need our help the most.... 

Beautifully written and full of wonderful descriptions and intriguing tales, In Patagonia is an account of Bruce Chatwin's travels to a remote country in search of a strange beast and his encounters with the people whose fascinating stories delay him on the road....

From everyday apps to complex algorithms, Ruha Benjamin cuts through tech-industry hype to understand how emerging technologies can reinforce white supremacy and deepen social inequity....

Living a Committed Life demonstrates the power of dedication that goes beyond the self and teaches how to live a committed life that enables you to draw on resources and capacities from your most authentic self....

From the bottom to the top of our economy, capitalism is too blunt an instrument to tackle Britain's epidemic of inequality....

The vast majority of our country is entirely unknown to us because we are banned from setting foot on it. By law of trespass, we are excluded from 92 per cent of the land and 97 per cent of its waterways, blocked by walls whose legitimacy is rarely questioned....

Many Remainers reported waking up the day after the Brexit vote feeling as if they were living in a foreign country....

From a former marine and Yale graduate, a powerful account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a broad, probing look at the struggles of America's white working class....

The long-awaited, inspirational guide to life for a generation of black British women inspired to make lemonade out of lemons and find success in every area of their lives....

From one of Washington’s most influential voices on economic policy, a lively and original argument that reducing inequality is not just fair but also key to delivering broadly shared economic growth and stability....

These are dangerous times for democracy....

Presenting a lively, accessible, and timely guide to Marxist economics for those who want to understand and dismantle the world of the 1%....

The Trespasser’s Companion is a rallying cry for greater public access to nature and a gently seditious guide to how to get it: by trespassing....

Beyond race or class, our lives are defined by a powerful, unspoken system of divisions....

From Malcolm Gladwell’s hit podcast Revisionist History comes a compendium about one of his greatest obsessions: education....

In this challenging work, Christopher Lasch makes an accessible critique of what is wrong with the values and beliefs of America's professional and managerial elites....

On any given night, more than half a million Americans and Canadians find themselves sleeping on the streets, in shelters, cars, and other places not meant for human habitation. Yet as this crisis continues to grow, it remains one of the least talked about—especially in churches....

Branko Milanovic presents a bold new account of the dynamics that drive inequality on a global scale....

One New Haven summer evening in 2006, a retired grandfather was shot point-blank by a young stranger. A hasty police investigation culminated in innocent sixteen-year-old Bobby being sentenced to prison for thirty-eight years. New Haven native Nicholas Dawidoff returned home and spent eight years reporting the deeper story of this injustice, and what it reveals about the enduring legacies of social and economic disparity. In The Other Side of Prospect, he has produced an immersive portrait of a seminal community in an old American city now beset by division and gun violence.

Long before the pandemic, Ruha Benjamin was doing groundbreaking research on race, technology, and justice, focusing on big, structural changes. But the twin plagues of COVID-19 and anti-Black police violence inspired her to rethink the importance of small, individual actions. Part memoir, part manifesto, Viral Justice is a sweeping and deeply personal exploration of how we can transform society through the choices we make every day. 

For a Dollar and a Dream shows how, in an era of stagnant upward mobility, millions of Americans turned to the lottery as their only chance at achieving the American Dream. Gamblers were not the only ones who bet on betting. As voters revolted against higher taxes in the late twentieth century, states saw legalized gambling as a panacea, a way of generating revenue without cutting services or raising taxes. Alongside stories of winners and losers, Jonathan Cohen charts the untold history of the nation's lottery system, revealing how players and policymakers alike got hooked.

Many black strategies of daily resistance have been obscured—until now. Race rebels, argues Kelley, have created strategies of resistance, movements, and entire subcultures. Here, for the first time, everyday race rebels are given the historiographical attention they deserve, from the Jim Crow era to the present.

Living a Committed Life demonstrates the power of dedication that goes beyond the self and teaches how to live a committed life that enables you to draw on resources and capacities from your most authentic self. In five parts, Lynne Twist shows how to make and keep commitments, engage in individual and collective action, and discover ways to connect and collaborate to make a difference.