Includes bibliographical references and index.

'The Equality Effect' is almost magical. In more equal countries, human beings are generally happier and healthier, there is less crime, more creativity and higher educational attainment. Danny Dorling delivers all evidence that is now so overwhelming that it should be changing politics and society all over the world. For the past 4 decades, many countries, including the US and the UK, have chosen the path to greater inequality on the assumption that there is no alternative. Yet even under globalisation, other nations continue to take a different road.