Why Equality is Better for Everyone

The Spirit Level

Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett's The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone is the most influential and talked-about book on society in the last decade - now updated with a new chapter on the controversy the book has ignited. 
 
 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 Australians? The answer: inequality. 
 
 This groundbreaking book, based on years of research, provides hard evidence to show: 
 
How almost everything - from life expectancy to mental illness, violence to illiteracy - is affected not by how wealthy a society is, but how equal it is 
That societies with a bigger gap between rich and poor are bad for everyone in them - including the well-off 
How we can find positive solutions and move towards a happier, fairer future 
 
 Urgent, provocative and genuinely uplifting, The Spirit Level has been heralded as providing a new way of thinking about ourselves and our communities, and could change the way you see the world. 
 
 'A big idea, big enough to change political thinking' - Guardian 
 
 'A remarkable new book ... the implications are profound' - Will Hutton, Observer 
 
 'The evidence is hard to dispute' - Economist 
 
Richard Wilkinson studied economic history at the London School of Economics before training in epidemiology and is Professor Emeritus at the University of Nottingham Medical School and Honorary Professor at University College London. 
 
Kate Pickett is a Professor of Epidemiology at the University of York and a National Institute for Health Research Career Scientist. Her work with Richard Wilkinson on The Spirit Level was shortlisted for Research Project of the Year 2009 by the Times Higher Education Supplement, and their book was chosen as one of the Top Ten Books of the Decade by the New Statesman.

Richard Wilkinson (Author) Richard Wilkinson has played a formative role in international research and his work has been published in ten languages. He studied economic history at the London School of Economics before training in epidemiology and is Professor Emeritus at the University of Nottingham Medical School and Honorary Professor at University College London. Kate Pickett (Author) Kate Pickett is Professor of Epidemiology at the University of York where she leads the Public Health &amp; Society group and is Associate Director of the Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity. She is co-author, with Richard Wilkinson, of the bestselling and award winning The Spirit Level (2009), chosen by the Guardian as one of the 100 most influential books of the century, and The Inner Level (2018). Her writing has appeared in numerous publications, including the Guardian, Nature, New York Times and the World Economic Forum Agenda. She has delivered more than 500 keynote speeches, including at the United Nations, the European Parliament and within UK government departments. @ProfKEPickett.

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 
- That societies with a bigger gap between rich and poor are bad for everyone in them - including the well-off 
- How we can find positive solutions and move towards a happier, fairer future 
 
Urgent, provocative and genuinely uplifting, The Spirit Level has been heralded as providing a new way of thinking about ourselves and our communities, and could change the way you see the world.

Richard Wilkinson

Kate Pickett

The question of inequality is likely to play a bigger role in the next election than it has for more than a generation. It would be better for all of us if that debate was informed by robust statistical analysis rather than the emotive politics of envy. Any politician wishing to do so would be wise to read Wilkinson and Pickett's books.

It holds the reader's attention by elaborating a phenomenon most will already have observed, and by providing an explanation for the dysfunction they see around them, from the brazen disregard for rules among many corporate and political leaders to the nihilism of drug addicts and school-shooters

How More Equal Societies Reduce Stress, Restore Sanity and Improve Everyone's Well-being

Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett's The Spirit Level, now published in more than twenty languages, has been one of the most influential non-fiction books published in the last decade, showing conclusively how less equal societies fare worse than more equal ones across a whole range of social measures - health, education, levels of violence, life expectancy and child wellbeing - and initiating the enormous public attention now given to the impacts of inequality. 
 
Based on an equally impressive range of data and analysis, The Inner Level now shows the impact inequality has on individuals: how it affects us psychologically, makes social relations more stressful, undermines self-confidence and distorts natural differences in personal abilities. It demonstrates that societies based on fundamental equalities, sharing and reciprocity produce much higher levels of wellbeing than those based on excessive individualism, competitiveness and social aggression. Like its predecessor, The Inner Level will transform ideas of how we should organise the way we live together.

Richard Wilkinson

Praise for The Inner Level

The question of inequality is likely to play a bigger role in the next election than it has for more than a generation. It would be better for all of us if that debate was informed by robust statistical analysis rat ...

It holds the reader's attention by elaborating a phenomenon most will already have observed, and by providing an explanation for the dysfunction they see around them, from the brazen disregard for rules among many c ...

Books by Richard Wilkinson

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter