The aim of the book is an integrated history of knowledge about social inequality, social conflicts and politics regulating social inequality, which can be helpful for historicising and contextualising current debates about wealth, poverty and social inequality. The history of social inequality directs the interest of research on concepts of socioeconomic order, regimes of inequality and basic compromises of modern societies. The book will examine which forms and what degree of social inequality was regarded as legitimate in different eras, how social inequality was justified and which mechanisms were developed to regulate and compensate social inequality. In a general respect, it can be asked how changes in approaches to social inequality are linked to economic changes.