If you want to read one book about inequality and its ramifications for all societies, now and in the past, let it be this. By a former Pulitzer winner.
A zesty account of archaeological wizardry, from Champollion's decipherment of hieroglyphics in 1822 to the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon.
A portrait of the utopia created by Eugene O'Neill, de Kooning, Josef and Anni Albers, Emma Goldman, Mary McCarthy, Edward Hopper, Walter Gropius and many others.