This book offers a double treat. First, it convincingly organizes wide-ranging materials in world history to demonstrate that only unusual and largely undesirable circumstances serve to reduce income inequalities in complex societies—a generalization as true in the past century as it was for the Romans or Mayans or dynastic Chinese. Second, it organizes data and argument in ways designed to attract a wide audience, interested in social science and policy, toward serious (if admittedly unusually ambitious) historical analysis, juxtaposing various regions and time periods in the exploration of key topics rather than laying out a conventional chronology. Both the findings and the presentation warrant serious attention in an interdisciplinary context. Depressing as his findings are, Scheidel invites careful consideration of their implications both for contemporary political action and for historical evaluations.

The first quarter of the book charts the rise of inequality as societies moved past the hunting and gathering...

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