Th is book is the product of years of work on income in e qual ity in
general and, more specifi cally, on global income in e qual ity. Th anking
every one from whom I learned over such a long period is impossible,
so I will focus more narrowly on the writing of this book. As every one
knows, the most diffi cult part is fi guring out the structure of a book.
Once I deci ded to begin with the greatest reshuffl ing of personal incomes
in the past two centuries, that is, with the eff ects of globalization
on the distribution of incomes in the world, the rest of the
chapters, as in a jigsaw puzzle, quickly fell into place.
