Since several years, and especially after the 2008 financial crisis, inequalities have become a topical issue again. International best-sellers are working on this issue for too long. NGOs publish alarmistic figures that illustrate the growing gap between the growing number and vulnerability of the poor and the ultra-rich, who no longer know how to spend their huge fortunes. From Athens to New York, from Madrid to Hong Kong, the popular movements that place the fight against ‘inequalities’ at the heart of their programme are growing and are taking on board. But behind slogans, how can we understand and measure precisely these inequalities, which increasingly weigh on the international agenda? Political, economic, social, racial, cultural or sexual: how do we break the different facets of inequality? Why are the international institutions, themselves very unequal, almost always failing to achieve their “development” goals? Why is access to food, housing, education or health so unequal? Does the injustice felt by many people foster conflict and political violence, thanks to researchers and journalists gathered around Bertrand Bmaladie and Dominique Vidal, this 2016 edition of the State of the World offers new perspectives for understanding contemporary inequalities at global, regional and national level. On the basis of solid statistical resources and countless examples, on the five continents, the specialists who contributed to this volume shake up the mechanisms and thus provide some avenues for trying to combat them.