Splendid and necessary

Henry Marsh, author of 'Do No Harm', New Statesman

Michael Marmot was one of the most impressive people I worked with in my time as Health Secretary. He points out, with patience and precision, that there is nothing inevitable about health inequalities. This important book is a rarity – an astute academic analysis that entertains as much as it informs

Rt Hon Alan Johnson MP

Michael Marmot reveals that the average person would have eight extra years of healthy life if they had the same opportunities as the richest in our society … It's time to stop seeing health as a matter of lifestyle choice and start campaigning for justice – for all our sakes

Observer

Punchily written … He leaves the reader with a sense of the gross injustice of a world where health outcomes are so unevenly distributed

Bee Wilson, Times Literary Supplement

The animating idea behind Marmot's life work is that social injustice is bad for our health. His research over the years has generated a catalogue of shocking headline findings, which are collected in this book to devastating effect … But Marmot is no doom-monger. Quite the opposite … this is a fundamentally optimistic book

Independent

A vitally important book

Literary Journal