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.