History of Social Inequality Top Ten Book List

Social inequality is a major topic focused on by governments around the world today. While tackling this issue has remained controversial, the topic has a long history and societies in the past have developed in ways that either limited or expanded such inequality. What we find is that, historically, social inequality tends to increase as societies scale to larger population levels and the political structures are more expansive, as empires and large states form. This creates greater social dependencies, which link people more closely but also creates differences among them. Even societies that have consciously attempted to minimize inequality have rarely been successful in fully minimizing inequality in cases where populations are relatively large.

Feasting was used by early societies as a way to create social dependencies that led to social inequality.

Top Ten List

1. Warde, B. (2017). Inequality in U.S. social policy: an historical analysis . New York, NY, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. This book provides a recent analysis of social inequality in the United States. From this analysis, it is clear the social inequality evident today has a long history in the United States. Racial, political, and economic access have not been even throughout the history of the United States, which has a historical precedent from the founding of the country.

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