The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century

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.

Reviews of The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century

One of The Wall Street Journal's What Business Leaders Read in 2017, chosen by Mohamed A. El-Erian "The Great Leveler should set off loud alarm bells…. The range of evidence is breathtaking." –Timur Kuran, Foreign Affairs "A readable and quirky history of economic inequality from the great apes to the modern day…. It is well worth the read. It is, in a word, gripping." –Victoria Bateman, Times Higher Education "Sweeping and provocative." –New Yorker "Mr Scheidel's evidence is so persuasive that readers will find themselves cheering on the Black Death as a boost to median wages." –Janan Ganesh, Financial Times "Walter Scheidel's The Great Leveler is a smartly argued book…. For anybody who has ever debated issues related to inequality and their broader meaning, this book provides more than just a powerful thought experiment." –Andrew Ross Sorkin, New York Times "A superb book." –Steven Pinker, Times Literary Supplement strategy+business Best Business Book of 2017 in Economics One of World's 2017 Books of the Year in "Understanding the World" One of the CNBC 13 Best Business Books of 2017 One of Financial Times (FT.com) Best Books of 2017: Economics, chosen by Martin Wolf One of the Economist.com "2017 Books of the Year" in Economics and Business Selected for The HCSS Bookshelf (chosen by Stephan De Spiegeleire) 2017 One of Project Syndicate's Best Reads in 2017 (chosen by Dambisa Moyo) One of the Microsoft Best Business Books of 2017 One of The New York Times Deal Book "Business Books Worth Reading" 2017 (chosen by Andrew Sorkin) One of BBC History Magazine's Books of the Year 2017 Shortlisted for the 2017 Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award Shortlisted for the 2017 Cundill History Prize, McGill University