The past year has been a tumultuous one -- the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way the world works, but in ways that we do not yet understand, while #BlackLivesMatter has been challenging deep-seated structures of authority around the world.

We know that the COVID-19 pandemic is a pandemic of inequality -- marginalized and racialized communities are far more vulnerable to the SARS-COV-2 virus. We know that #BlackLivesMatter challenges structures of inequality. We live in a world that on the one hand is richer than at any other time in human history but which on the other hand sees hundreds of millions of people living in poverty and global inequality being historically unprecedented. These forces can be starkly illustrated: on 20 July 2020 Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world, added US$13 billion to his wealth in just one day.

Our world can at times appear to be out of control and beyond our comprehension. Yet it is possible to cut through this complexity and and unpack the key factors shaping the contemporary world. Human inequality in global perspective is designed to enable you to understand how our world of unparalleled affluence and immense deprivation came to be. After all, if we want the world to become a better place the first thing that we must do is try to better understand it.