This book provides selections from the seminal works of Karl Marx, Max Weber, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman that reveal some of the reasons why class, race, and gender inequalities have proven very adaptive and can flourish even today in the 21st century.

Preface and Acknowledgments -- Poverty and Inequality in the 21st Century -- The Classic Theory -- Classes in Capitalism and Pre-Capitalism -- Class, Status, Party -- The Conservation of Races -- Women and Economics -- The Great Takeoff in Income and Wealth Inequality -- Striking It Richer: The Evolution of Top Incomes in the United States -- Capital in the 21st Century -- The Race Between Education and Technology -- Why Is Income Inequality Growing? -- Winner-Take-All Politics: Public Policy, Political Organization, and the Precipitous Rise of Top Incomes in the United States -- Unions, Norms, and the Rise in U.S. Wage Inequality -- (Some) Inequality Is Good for You -- The One Percent -- The Power Elite -- The Future of Intellectuals and the Rise of the New Class -- Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There -- Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite -- Poverty and the Underclass -- Nickel and Dimed -- Low-Income Urban Fathers and the "Package Deal" of Family Life -- The War on Poverty -- The Rise of Extreme Poverty in the United States -- Poverty and Child Development -- Being Poor, Black, and American -- American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass -- Community Well-Being and the Great Recession -- The Legacy of Multigenerational Disadvantage -- Eviction and the Reproduction of Urban Poverty -- Incarceration and Social Inequality -- Mobility and the American Dream -- The Widening Academic Achievement Gap Between the Rich and the Poor -- Nonpersistent Inequality in Educational Attainment -- Rationing College Opportunity -- A New Social Psychological Model of Educational Attainment -- Academically Adrift -- Economic Mobility -- Does College Still Have Equalizing Effects? -- Paying for the Party -- Ain't No Makin' It: Leveled Aspirations in a Low-Income Neighborhood -- It's a Decent Bet That Our Children Will Be Professors Too -- The Strength of Weak Ties -- Networks, Race, and Hiring -- The Great Risk Shift -- Little Labor: How Union Decline Is Changing the American Landscape -- Labor Market Shocks: Are There Lessons for Anti-Poverty Policy? -- Race, Ethnicity, and Inequality -- Racial Formation in the United States -- The Dynamics of Racial Fluidity and Inequality -- The New Second Generation: Segmented Assimilation and Its Variants -- Why Replenishment Strengthens Racial and Ethnic Boundaries -- Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal?: A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination -- Marked: Race, Crime, and Finding Work in an Era of Mass Incarceration -- Stereotype Threat and African-American Student Achievement -- The Declining Significance of Race: Blacks and Changing American Institutions -- How Do Latino Immigrants Fit into the Racial Order? -- Black Picket Fences: Privilege and Peril Among the Black Middle Class -- Tiger Kids and the Success Frame -- Gender, Sexuality, and Inequality -- The Social Construction of Gender -- Fag Discourse in a Post-Homophobic Era -- The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work -- Opting Out? -- Why Is There Still So Much Gender Segregation? -- Orchestrating Impartiality: The Impact of "Blind" Auditions on Female Musicians -- Getting a Job: Is There a Motherhood Penalty? -- Why Race, Class, and Gender Matter -- Do Openly Gay Men Experience Employment Discrimination? -- The Gender Revolution: Uneven and Stalled -- The Persistence of Gender Inequality -- How Inequality Spills Over -- Income Inequality and Income Segregation -- The Realignment of U.S. Presidential Voting -- Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life -- The Fundamentals of Fundamental Causality -- Moving Toward Equality? -- Skill Formation and the Economics of Investing in Disadvantaged Children -- Why Late Investments Can Work -- Flexicurity -- Reducing Poverty the Democratic Way -- Tackling the Managerial Power Problem: The Key to Improving Executive Compensation -- We Need to Have a Second Conversation