Robin Wright

As the twenty-first century dawns, the previous one hundred years may ultimately be remembered not as a time of unparalleled economic progress, but the time when the gap between the rich and poor became “staggering,” Robin Wright argues in the following viewpoint. Among other global statistics, Wright points to the doubling of the gap between the earnings of those at the top and those at the bottom of society in the last thirty years. The disparity is not just monetary, she contends, but includes gaps in levels of education, health, and technology. Wright, a Los Angeles Times staff writer nominated for five Pulitzer Prizes, has written two books on Islam and the Middle East and is the coauthor of Flashpoints: Promise and Peril in a New World.

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