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 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