Reviewing Thurow's analysis of US income inequality, 50 years after its first publication, this retrospective article explains the problems in its central theory of job allocation which mutes its reception at the time and argues for their continued relevance despite subsequent structural change. It also identifies the ongoing relevance of Thurow's account of wealth inequality, which counterposed the sudden revaluation of assets to their gradual accumulation. Thurow's book is contextualized in the US economic and political debates of the time, with an exploration of links to his journal publications on the same topic and to the industrial and trade policies to which his writing subsequently turned.