Inequality and the 1%
by Danny Dorling
Since the Great Recession hit in 2008, the 1% has only grown richer while the rest find life increasingly tough. The gap between the haves and the have-nots has turned into a chasm. While the rich have found new ways of protecting their wealth, everyone else has suffered the penalties of austerity.
But inequality is more than just economics. Being born outside the 1% has a dramatic impact on a person’s potential: reducing life expectancy, limiting educational and work prospects, and even affecting mental health.
What is to be done? In Inequality and the 1% leading social thinker Danny Dorling lays bare the extent and true cost of the division in our society and asks what have the super-rich ever done for us? He shows that it is the 1% that threatens us with the most harm and why we must urgently redress the balance.
Inequality is more than just economics. It is the culture that divides and makes social mobility impossible. Leading geographer Danny Dorling goes in pursuit of the latest research into how the lives and ideas of the 1 percent impact the remaining 99 percent; and the findings are shocking. Inequality in the UK is increasing; more and more people are driven toward the poverty line. The mere accident of being born outside the 1 percent will have a dramatic impact on the rest of your life: it will reduce your life expectancy, as well as educational and work prospects, and affect your mental health.
In this book filled with illustrations and infographics that bring the facts to life, Dorling convincingly proves that the cost of the super rich is just too high for us.
On this book companion website you find further material including a reading samples and all figures from the book. Please go to the Material section to get an overview of what is available online. You can buy the book online at the publisher Verso Books.
Reviews / Comments (PDF documents)
Sunday Times, Times, Telegraph, Daily Mail, ITV, Evening Standard, Inside Housing, Financial Times, Independent, London Evening Standard (again), Amazon, Times Higher Education, Marx and Philosophy Review
Multimedia
Danny in dinner jacket and bow tie at Mansfield College Oxford
Danny's keynote speech at the conference of the British Educational Research Association
Fully updated new edition:
Why we cannot afford the rich in post Brexit Britain
‘Dorling asks questions about inequality that fast become unswervable: can we afford the superrich? Can society prosper? Can we realise our potential?’
ZOE WILLIAMS, Guardian
‘An incredibly thoughtful book. With wit, expertise and a necessary anger, Danny Dorling makes the case for a “slow revolution” against the concentrated wealth of the top 1%, who threaten our national and global well-being. Read him. Enjoy him. Join him’
MELISSA BENN, writer and campaigner
‘A convincing picture of the epic insulation of the 1%’
MARY O'HARA, author of Austerity Bites
‘A clear and readable account of the damage wrought by extreme inequality. This is a powerful book’
KATE E. PICKETT, co-author of The Spirit Level
To find out more about Danny and his work, please go to