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Walter Scheidel is Dickason Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Classics and History at Stanford University. His previous publications include Rome and China and, as coeditor with Pete Fibiger Bang and C. A. Bayly, The Oxford World History of Empire.
Image credit: Scheidel at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting of the New Champions in 2012 [credit: World Economic Forum]

Serier

Værker af Walter Scheidel

The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World (2007) — Redaktør — 64 eksemplarer
The Ancient Economy: Recent Approaches (2002) — Redaktør — 37 eksemplarer
The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Economy (2012) — Redaktør — 33 eksemplarer
The Oxford Handbook of Roman Studies (2010) — Redaktør — 23 eksemplarer
Fiscal Regimes and the Political Economy of Premodern States (2015) — Redaktør — 8 eksemplarer
Debating Roman Demography (Mnemosyne Supplements) (2000) — Redaktør — 5 eksemplarer

Associated Works

A Companion to the Roman Army (2007) — Bidragyder — 68 eksemplarer
A Companion to Ancient History (2009) — Bidragyder — 34 eksemplarer
The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Rome (2013) — Bidragyder — 33 eksemplarer
The Monetary Systems of the Greeks and Romans (2008) — Bidragyder — 32 eksemplarer
The Oxford Handbook of Hellenic Studies (2009) — Bidragyder — 21 eksemplarer
Tributary Empires in Global History (2011) — Bidragyder — 16 eksemplarer
A Companion to Families in the Greek and Roman Worlds (2010) — Bidragyder — 13 eksemplarer
Growing Up Fatherless in Antiquity (2009) — Bidragyder — 12 eksemplarer
Rome the Cosmopolis (2003) — Bidragyder — 12 eksemplarer
Poverty in the Roman World (2006) — Bidragyder — 8 eksemplarer
What is a Slave Society? (2018) — Bidragyder — 4 eksemplarer

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The author's wide ranging exploration of the question of why what most deem the "great divergence," and what he deems the "second great divergence" happened - why is it that the industrial revolution took place in northwestern Europe rather than elsewhere?

The author sets forth his thesis that it was primarily the polycentric nature of Western Europe that can explain it best historically.

The author begins with the Roman Empire. He points out how odd the Roman Empire was in the grand scheme of things - not just in the number of people over which it ruled, and for how long it ruled, but also the area over which it ruled. He does well at showing how well Rome was able to rule and the kind of quality of life enjoyed under the Empire, which in many respects would not be seen again until the modern era.

He explains how Rome was able to build itself up as a power and why that power was able to spread as it did: the militaristic culture, the high percentage of soldiers available, the size of armies, and the constant economic pressure to conquer more and more people until the development of the Empire itself. He then explored counterfactuals: under what situations would Rome not become what it was? The strongest counterfactuals stem from Roman origins and then the prospect of invasion from Alexander the Great. The rest stretched credulity; thus the strength of Rome in its moment is explained well.

Then the author tackles the question why no other empire was able to coalesce in Western Europe. He goes through a series of counterfactuals regarding every major power from Justinian to Napoleon and wondering what it would have taken for them to develop an empire like Rome. He is very persuasive at showing how no such power could have really built an empire once the fracture took place and Justinian's designs were frustrated by plague and collapse.

He then explains what he calls the first great divergence: the path Western Europe took toward polycentrism after the collapse of the Roman Empire whereas empires remained prevalent in eastern Europe and Asia. He shows powerfully the effect of geography and persuasively argues for a steppe effect: any agricultural-based power near the Eurasian/African steppe would likely develop into an empire since they have horses and a strong enemy at the ready. Southeast Asia and Western Europe are the only regions fully cut off from the steppe, and those are the places you find polycentrism. The author also looks at cultural reasons - religion, philosophy, etc. He shows how Catholicism maintains a common identity in Western Europe while in many respects fostering the fractured political entities of the day; nevertheless, he shows well that the cultures that developed in China vs. Western Europe were very much creatures of their particular context and are as much explained by the other factors as being an explaining factor in and of itself.

The author then explores the medieval and early modern era, primarily comparing and contrasting Western Europe and China. He shows why the way the Westerners fought each other led to developments in technology, and how the multiple states and their competition allowed for freer thought, discovering other lands, the sheltering of others' dissenters, the effect of the Reformation, etc., and ultimately the development of the mercantilist economies of the Netherlands and Britain that fostered the second great divergence. He persuasively explains why empires like the Ottomans and the Chinese proved less interested in investments technological development or journeys of discovery, focusing instead on their own survival and aggrandizement. He also shows how that was true of the late Roman Empire.

In the Epilogue he asks what Rome did for us, and his answer seems to be primarily that it went away and never returned. He's willing to consider Christianity and Latin as unifying premises fostering a kind of common identity despite polycentrism, but isn't convinced that the second great divergence would not follow the first had Rome ended while fully pagan.

This is a great historical analysis: the author is able to explain why certain developments and changes took place in northwestern Europe without relying at all on any kind of supremacist trope. This is a great work of post-white supremacy historical analysis: it is not a triumphalist tale, but a reminder that one group of people developed in a way they did because of their particular context, and if they had lived somewhere else, and another group lived where they lived, their circumstances would likely have followed their placement. There's still some room for historical accident - Alexander's death in particular stands out - but you walk away from this book with a much better handle as to why world history has played out like it has.

Long and involved but worthwhile.
… (mere)
 
Markeret
deusvitae | 1 anden anmeldelse | Sep 8, 2020 |
Important and Depressing.

The Necessity of Violence

In known History, according to our author Walter Scheidel, peaceful redistribution has never succeeded in lessening inequality of wealth.
Now, the forms of violence that lessen inequality may be the result of direct human choice, such as war and revolution; or they may be (at least partially) unwilled, such as famine and pandemics. ...With state collapse seemingly a combination of both the willed and unwilled.
Let us grant all this for the sake of argument. Even so, none of these will _always_ produce an easing of inequality. But, according to our author, it is always through some form of violence that economic inequality is substantially lessened.
...ALWAYS.

Thoughts
This would seemingly leave us with only two choices:
either we accept ever-increasing economic inequality,
or we accept the necessity of massive violence to stop this.
Obviously, no one is maintaining that the growth of inequality can't be slowed by legislation, such as progressive taxation. But all these various progressive schemes do is slow the rate of growth of inequality. Taxes and welfare redistribution only slow the inevitable rise of inequality. Inequality must increase, however slowly, even in welfare states.

Again, there are only two choices. Violence or ever-growing Inequality.
...Now, which do you choose?
… (mere)
 
Markeret
pomonomo2003 | 1 anden anmeldelse | Apr 21, 2019 |
The Great Leveler by Walter Scheidel is a provocative and insightful contribution to our understanding of inequality over the long run and despite being grounded in economic history it is a book where you find serious questions about the future of inequality and the shape and structure of our societies. It shows that inequality never dies peacefully. Inequality declines when bloodbath and disaster strike and increases when stability and peace return.

Anyway, the book details some principal dynamics of the evolution of economic inequality. There are obviously many different types of inequality we could talk about, but the book limits to income and wealth inequality and in particular to one question – are there some patterns across the full scope of history that have repeatedly reduced economic inequality and how do they compare to other variables.

Walter Scheidel, the author of the book, names four major variables of levelling:
• mass-mobilisation warfare
• transformative revolutions
• state collapses
• catastrophic plagues
which have repeatedly destroyed the fortunes of the rich and filled up pockets of the poor.

Violent upheavals have been the single, most important means of levelling wealth and income inequality in human history. So violent disturbances are often associated with the death of tens of millions of people have been by far the most effective means of reducing economic inequality.

Starting with state collapse is simply the flipside of state formation. If we look at thousands of years of human history, most people lived in societies that were governed by states and were more or less openly predatory, unfair, hierarchical, exploitative. To a large extent, they were focused on the benefit of a small ruling class at the expense of everybody else. The longer these governments lasted the bigger they became in the form of pre-modern empires, in particular, the more potential there was for the concentration of income and especially wealth among a small ruling class, the worse it was for the rest of the population.

The second main pre-modern levelling force was pandemic, a very severe outbreak of epidemic disease. A few times in our history (black death that killed about half of all people in Britain and a third of all people in Europe, the pandemics in a new world introduced by the Europeans after 1492 that introduced smallpox and measles decimating a local population) what happens after all these occasions was that inequality went down. As a result of these epidemics, tens of millions of people lost their lives but survivors happened to be better off and the real incomes of the working class went up about 150%. Unfortunately, the idyll lasted as long as these plagues and their aftermath were active and once the stabilisation began and everything went back to normal the high levels of economic inequality showed up once again.

The third factor – mass-mobilisation is a capital phenomenon where capital holdings lost their returns on capital dramatically as a result of state intervention in the private sector associated with the war effort. Belligerent states had to raise taxes on income and wealth the rich, in order to pay for the war effort, got higher tax rates. For high earners, there was even a 90% tax introduced, and 70% for income gained large entities in the US and similar rates in Britain, France and Japan. All over the place this effectively resulted in a redistribution of resources from the rich to workers. These countries achieved full employment because of conscription systems and the money ended up, primarily, in the pockets of the working population.

Many of these events worked in the past, let’s say until 1970. In the world, we inhabit today, in an environment that is much more globalized, much more integrated than it was in the past all these things have really begun to fade. The environment today is quite different from the shape it was a couple of generations ago when we could observe significant reductions in inequality. Sadly there are estimations reflecting that it will go up rather than down in the 21st century. Globalization is enormously beneficial to many people in developing countries but disadvantageous to certain groups in developed countries which we have observed now for some time. Automation is an ongoing completely open-ended process. Nobody knows what jobs are actually going to be done by robots or by software in the coming years. From now there is certainly enormous potential for destruction of certain types of jobs. Retraining is an answer, but not a perfect remedy because we cannot just retrain our skills overnight. A lot of friction is bound to occur as a part of this process. Another “development” – ageing of the general populations we already see in Japan and in Western Europe, in particular, is going to become much more widespread. Next generations are going to have a problem because the older population of developed countries is going to receive less public funds. It will be available for aggressively the distributive programs because more money will have to be spent on caring for the pensions healthcare.

The flipside of secular ageing is immigration, the idea that if there are more and more elderly people and not enough young people it will just have more people coming from other parts of the world. In the case of Europe, it would have to be the Middle East. It would have to be Africa which creates new challenges with respect to inequality. Something we have not really seen yet because the processes really are just beginning on a large scale, but there are lots of... (if you like to read my full review please visit my blog https://leadersarereaders.blog/2019/03/28/thegreatleveler)
… (mere)
2 stem
Markeret
LeadersAreReaders | 1 anden anmeldelse | Mar 28, 2019 |
This is not, as the title led me to hope, a broad based comparison of the Roman Empire with Chinese empire of the same period. Rather, it is a compilation of seven academic essays comparing various aspects of political organization in the two empires. This does not amount to the same thing -- there is no overarching view, and no overall conclusions. Moreover, at least for a general reader, there are big differences among the essays. Two were very interesting to this general reader, and very readable -- Nathan Rosenstein on state formation and Karen Turner on law and punishment -- and another was almost as good, Peter Band on tribute and trade. But three other essays were too narrow in scope for a generalist -- Maria Dettenhoffer on women and (mostly) eunuchs, Mark Lewis on gifts and charity, and Walter Scheidel on monetary systerm (the last is an exhaustive, and exhausting, study of coinage). The introductory essay, also by Scheidel, is written in deep academese. Overall, this is a book for academics. It is also one, however, which a general reader will find useful and interesting -- in parts.… (mere)
1 stem
Markeret
annbury | Jan 20, 2012 |

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Associated Authors

Sitta Von Reden Contributor, Editor
Ian Morris Editor, Contributor
Peter Fibiger Bang Contributor
William V. Harris Contributor
Paul Erdkamp Contributor
Peter R. Bedford Contributor
John Kenyon Davies Contributor
Gary Reger Contributor
Robin Osborne Contributor
Keith Hopkins Contributor
Neville Morley Contributor
John Bennet Contributor
Joseph G. Manning Contributor
John F. Haldon Contributor
Paul Cartledge Contributor
Josef Wiesehöfer Contributor
Karen Turner Contributor
Richard Saller Contributor
Elio Lo Cascio Contributor
Bruce W. Frier Contributor
Roger S. Bagnall Contributor
Beryl Rawson Contributor
Carlos F. Norena Contributor
Seth Schwartz Contributor
Astrid Moller Contributor
Dennis P. Kehoe Contributor
Willem M. Jongman Contributor
Andrea Giardina Contributor
Robert Sallares Contributor
Philippe Leveau Contributor
Helmuth Schneider Contributor
David Cherry Contributor
Michael Dietler Contributor
Jean-Paul Morel Contributor
Susan E. Alcock Contributor
Jack A. Goldstone Contributor
Mark Edward Lewis Contributor
Nathan Rosenstein Contributor
Emily Mackil Contributor
André Tchernia Contributor
R. Bruce Hitchner Contributor
Mario Liverani Contributor
Paul Halstead Contributor
Leslie Kurke Contributor
Dominic Rathbone Contributor
Scott Meikle Contributor
Mark Granovetter Contributor
Takeshi Amemiya Contributor
Avner Greif Contributor
Jean Andreau Contributor
Clementina Panella Contributor
Lauren Walther Contributor
Andrew Wilson Contributor
Tracy Prowse Contributor
Luca Bondioli Contributor
Dennis Kehoe Contributor
Gloria Vivenza Contributor
Colin Adams Contributor
Noreen Tuross Contributor
Peter Temin Contributor
Michael G. Campana Contributor
Roy J. King Contributor
Peter Garnsey Contributor
Peter A. Underhill Contributor
Michael Mackinnon Contributor
Michael McCormick Contributor
Geoffrey Kron Contributor
Cameron Hawkins Contributor
Kyle Harper Contributor
Oliver E. Craig Contributor
Simon Loseby Contributor
Rebecca Gowland Contributor
Morris Silver Contributor
Ellen Oliensis Contributor
Mario De Nonno Contributor
Llewelyn Morgan Contributor
Michèle Lowrie Contributor
Ellen Finkelpearl Contributor
Henry Hurst Contributor
Joshua T. Katz Contributor
Matthew Roller Contributor
Andrew Riggsby Contributor
Nicola Terrenato Contributor
Paul T. Keyser Contributor
Edmund Thomas Contributor
Jennifer Ebbeler Contributor
Rebecca Flemming Contributor
Christina S. Kraus Contributor
Joy Connolly Contributor
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Kai Brodersen Contributor
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Stephen Hinds Contributor
Keith Bradley Contributor
Nicholas Purcell Contributor
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Anthony Corbeill Contributor
Jill Harries Contributor
Philip Hardie Contributor
Harriet I. Flower Contributor
Hagith Sivan Contributor
Denis Feeney Contributor
Joseph Farrell Contributor
Werner Eck Contributor
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John Bodel Contributor
Charles Brian Rose Contributor
Kathleen McCarthy Contributor
Kristina Milnor Contributor
Richard Lim Contributor
James J. O'Donnell Contributor
Eugenio La Rocca Contributor
Alfonso Traina Contributor
Emma Dench Contributor
William E. Metcalf Contributor
Clifford Ando Contributor
Robert A. Kaster Contributor
Florence Dupont Contributor
Maurizio Bettini Contributor
Mark Lewis Contributor
Corey Brennan Contributor
Dingxin Zhao Contributor
Peter Eich Contributor
Michael Puett Contributor
Walter Ameling Contributor
Gojko Barjamovic Contributor
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Henrik Mouritsen Contributor
Chase F. Robinson Contributor
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Margaret Levi Contributor
Metin M. Cosgel Contributor
John Haldon Contributor
Kent Gang Deng Contributor
Josiah Ober Contributor
Gilles Bransbourg Contributor
Hugh Kennedy Contributor
Mark E. Lewis Contributor
Peter Fibiger Bang Contributor
James Tan Contributor
David Stasavage Contributor
Philip C. Brown Contributor
Michael Jursa Contributor
Edgar Kiser Contributor
Michael E. Smith Contributor
Richard Alston Contributor
Brent D. Shaw Contributor
Cédric Weis Traduction
Antonia Nevill Translator

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Værker
16
Also by
20
Medlemmer
881
Popularitet
#29,074
Vurdering
3.9
Anmeldelser
5
ISBN
71
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