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Inequality title wins Bristol Ideas award

20.05.10 | Catherine Neilan

A book looking at equality in society has beaten off competition from five other titles, including one by Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen, to win the annual Bristol Festival of Ideas award, and prize money of £10,000.

The judges said The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett (Penguin) had already had "considerable impact" and should "be key in future policy making".

Andrew Kelly, director of the Bristol Festival of Ideas and chair of the judging panel, added: "The Spirit Level stood out because it was a new idea based on many decades of research. Successive governments have failed to tackle inequality. Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett presented their case with great knowledge and in an accessible way."

The award aims to support books which present "new, important and challenging ideas, and which is engaging, accessible and rigorously argued".

The other titles in the shortlist, drawn from 130 submissions, were:

A Face to the World by Laura Cumming (HarperPress)

When China Rules the World by Martin Jacques (Penguin)

The Master and His Emissary by Iain McGhilcrist (Yale)

Dead Aid by Dambisa Moyo (Penguin)

The Idea of Justice by Amartya Sen (Allen Lane)
    

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