LEADER 00000cam 122007577a 4500 001 19981044 003 LIBRIS 008 170109s2017 xxua b 000 0 eng c 020 9780691165028 020 0691165025 041 eng 082 04 305.512|223/swe 084 Kv|2kssb/8 084 Ocl|2kssb/8 084 Qada|2kssb/8 092 0 305.5|bengelska 100 1 Scheidel, Walter,|d1966-|4aut 245 14 The great leveler :|bviolence and the history of inequality from the Stone Age to the twenty-first century /|cWalter Scheidel 246 3 Violence and the history of inequality from the Stone Age to the 21st century 264 Princeton, New Jersey :|bPrinceton University Press,|c2017 300 xvii, 504 s. :|bill 490 1 The Princeton economic history of the Western world 500 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 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. (Bookdata) 504 Includes bibliographical references (pages 457-493) and index 505 8 Introduction: The Challenge of Inequality -- A Brief History Of Inequality. The Rise of Inequality -- Empires of Inequality -- Up and Down -- War. Total War -- The Great Compression -- Preindustrial Warfare and Civil War - - Revolution. Communism -- Before Lenin -- Collapse. State Failure and Systems Collapse -- Plague. The Black Death -- Pandemics, Famine, and War -- Alternatives. Reform, Recession, and Representation -- Economic Development and Education -- What If ? From History to Counterfactuals -- Inequality Redux And The Future Of Leveling. -- In Our Time -- What Does the Future Hold? -- Appendix: The Limits of Inequality 650 0 Equality|xHistory 650 0 Violence|xHistory 650 7 Jämlikhet|xekonomiska aspekter|xhistoria|2sao 650 7 Våld|xekonomiska aspekter|xhistoria|2sao 651 4 Västerlandet 830 0 The Princeton economic history of the Western world 907 00 170801
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