A sweeping and original history of how economists have thought about inequality for two centuries, told through portraits of six key figures.

What do you see as income distribution in your time, and how and why do you expect it to be changes? This is the question Branko Milanovic asks six of history's most influential economists: François Quesnay, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Karl Marx, Vilfredo Pareto and Simon Kuznets. Examining their work in the context of their lives, he traces the evolution of ideas about inequality, showing how views varied widely across eras and societies.

The book shows how Pareto rethought class as a question of the relationship between elite and the rest of the population, and Kuznets viewed inequality as a consequence of the gap between city and countryside. Explains why inequality research was sidelined during the Cold War and has since regained its central place in modern economics.

Branko Milanovic is a Serbian-American economist specializing in income inequality and globalization. Doctor of Philosophy, professor at the City University of New York, leading economist at the World Bank, where he worked for more than 20 years.