Göran Therborn: The Killing Fields of Inequality

This is a theoretical as well as an empirical book. Theoretically, it sorts out the differences between difference and inequality, it sets out a moral argumentation for why inequality matters, it presents a multidimensional analysis of inequality, and it lays bare the mechanisms of equalization as well as of inequalization. Empirically, the book is global in scope, historical in depth and multidimensional in range, analyzing life expectancy, health and body measures, and existential recognition, rights, and respect, as well as income.

It also tries to answer three puzzles: Why have the Northern welfare states failed on vital inequality? Why has existential egalitarianism been so (relatively) successful in the past fifty years?  What is the connection between the concurrent inter-national convergence of income and rising intra-national inequality?

The book ends with a discussion of the world politics of (in)equality and the possibilities reducing inequalities.

The Killing Fields of Inequality Polity, Cambridge, 2013