LEADER 03801nam 22004695 450 001 9910163941903321 005 20210411115418.0 010 $a9781400884605 (electronic book) 024 7 $a10.1515/9781400884605 035 $a(DE-B1597)479709 035 $a(OCoLC)971057665 035 $a(DE-B1597)9781400884605 035 $a(EXLCZ)993710000001024785 100 $a20200608h20172017 fg 101 0 $aeng 135 $aur||#|||||||| 181 $2rdacontent 182 $2rdamedia 183 $2rdacarrier 200 14$aThe great leveler $eviolence and the history of inequality from the Stone Age to the twenty-first century /$fWalter Scheidel 210 1$aPrinceton, New Jersey :$cPrinceton University Press,$d[2017] 210 4$dİ2017 215 $a1 online resource (xvii, 504 pages) 225 0 $aThe Princeton economic history of the Western world ;$v67 311 $a1-4008-8460-8 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references (p. 457-493) and index. 327 $tFrontmatter --$tCONTENTS --$tList of Figures and Tables --$tACKNOWLEDGMENTS --$tIntroduction: The Challenge of Inequality --$t1. The Rise of Inequality --$t2. Empires of Inequality --$t3. Up and Down --$t4. Total War --$t5. The Great Compression --$t6. Preindustrial Warfare and Civil War --$t7. Communism --$t8. Before Lenin --$t9. State Failure and Systems Collapse --$t10. The Black Death --$t11. Pandemics, Famine, and War --$tPART VI. ALTERNATIVES --$t12. Reform, Recession, and Representation --$t13. Economic Development and Education --$t14. What If ? From History to Counterfactuals --$t15. In Our Time --$t16. What Does the Future Hold? --$tAppendix: The Limits of Inequality --$tBibliography --$tIndex 330 $aHow only violence and catastrophes have consistently reduced inequality throughout world historyAre mass violence and catastrophes the only forces that can seriously decrease economic inequality? To judge by thousands of years of history, the answer is yes. Tracing the global history of inequality from the Stone Age to today, Walter Scheidel shows that inequality never dies peacefully. Inequality declines when carnage and disaster strike and increases when peace and stability return. The Great Leveler is the first book to chart the crucial role of violent shocks in reducing inequality over the full sweep of human history around the world.Ever since humans began to farm, herd livestock, and pass on their assets to future generations, economic inequality has been a defining feature of civilization. Over thousands of years, only violent events have significantly lessened inequality. The "Four Horsemen" of leveling?mass-mobilization warfare, transformative revolutions, state collapse, and catastrophic plagues?have repeatedly destroyed the fortunes of the rich. Scheidel identifies and examines these processes, from the crises of the earliest civilizations to the cataclysmic world wars and communist revolutions of the twentieth century. Today, the violence that reduced inequality in the past seems to have diminished, and that is a good thing. But it casts serious doubt on the prospects for a more equal future.An essential contribution to the debate about inequality, The Great Leveler provides important new insights about why inequality is so persistent?and why it is unlikely to decline anytime soon. 410 0$aPrinceton economic history of the Western world 606 $aEquality$xHistory 606 $aViolence$xHistory 615 0$aEquality$xHistory. 615 0$aViolence$xHistory. 676 $a305 686 $aMS 1300$2rvk 700 $aScheidel$b Walter, 1966-$0254926 801 0$bDE-B1597 801 1$bDE-B1597 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910163941903321 996 $aThe great leveler$94304664 997 $aUNINA