The great leveler violence and the history of inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century Walter Scheidel

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Scheidel, Walter

Series:

The Princeton Economic History of the Western World ; 69

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Princeton, NJ Princeton University Press [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Are mass violence and catastrophes the only forces that can seriously decrease economic inequality? To judge by thousands of years of history, the answer is yes. Tracing the global history of inequality from the Stone Age to today, Walter Scheidel shows that it never dies peacefully. The Great Leveler is the first book to chart the crucial role of violent shocks in reducing inequality over the full sweep of human history around the world. The "Four Horsemen" of leveling-mass-mobilization warfare, transformative revolutions, state collapse, and catastrophic plagues-have repeatedly destroyed the fortunes of the rich. Today, the violence that reduced inequality in the past seems to have diminished, and that is a good thing. But it casts serious doubt on the prospects for a more equal future. An essential contribution to the debate about inequality, The Great Leveler provides important new insights about why inequality is so persistent-and why it is unlikely to decline anytime soon.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Figures and tables

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The challenge of inequality

Part I. A BRIEF HISTORY OF INEQUALITY

The Rise of Inequality

Empires of Inequality

Up and Down

Part II. WAR

Total War

The Great Compression

Preindustrial Warfare and Civil War

Part III. REVOLUTION

Communism

Before Lenin

Part IV. COLLAPSE

State Failure and Systems Collapse

Part V. PLAGUE

The Black Death

Pandemics, Famine, and War

Part VI. ALTERNATIVES

Reform, Recession, and Representation

Economic Development and Education

What If? From History to Counterfactuals

Part VII. INEQUALITY REDUX AND THE FUTURE OF LEVELING

In Our Time

What Does the Future Hold?

Appendix: The Limits of Inequality

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Mai 2019)

ISBN:

9780691184319

0691184313

OCLC:

1050781974