The Great Leveler

Walter Scheidel is the Dickason Professor in the Humanities, professor of classics and history, and a Kennedy-Grossman Fellow in Human Biology at Stanford University. The author or editor of sixteen previous books, he has published widely on premodern social and economic history, demography, and comparative history. He lives in Palo Alto, California.

出版者:Princeton University Press

作者:Walter Scheidel

页数:528

出版时间:2017-1-24

价格:USD 35.00

装帧:Hardcover

isbn号码:9780691165028

丛书系列:Princeton Economic History of the Western World

图书标签:社会学经济学经济史历史不平等政治社会学社会比较政治学

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. Periods of increased equality are usually born of carnage and disaster and are generally short-lived, disappearing with the return of peace and stability. 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.

读后感

这就是中国顶尖大学武汉大学的教授翻译的水平吗？真是毫无诚心，完全是应付差事。不值得购买，浪费钱。看看能否找到原版吧。 出版社拿到手也不再看一遍吗？毫无职业素养。 整本书除了序言，正文我猜都是机翻的。毕竟序言一般都是能让大家提前看到的，至于正文的话，反正买了才...  

这就是中国顶尖大学武汉大学的教授翻译的水平吗？真是毫无诚心，完全是应付差事。不值得购买，浪费钱。看看能否找到原版吧。 出版社拿到手也不再看一遍吗？毫无职业素养。 整本书除了序言，正文我猜都是机翻的。毕竟序言一般都是能让大家提前看到的，至于正文的话，反正买了才...  

这就是中国顶尖大学武汉大学的教授翻译的水平吗？真是毫无诚心，完全是应付差事。不值得购买，浪费钱。看看能否找到原版吧。 出版社拿到手也不再看一遍吗？毫无职业素养。 整本书除了序言，正文我猜都是机翻的。毕竟序言一般都是能让大家提前看到的，至于正文的话，反正买了才...  

https://athenacool.wordpress.com/2019/07/17/%e4%b8%8d%e5%b9%b3%e7%ad%89%e7%a4%be%e4%bc%9a/ 不平等社会：从石器时代到21世纪,人类如何应对不平等 [美]沃尔特·沙伊德尔 / 颜鹏飞 / 中信出版集团股份有限公司 / 2019-6 子扉我 2019年夏 季风异次元空间二世 原载回响编辑部...

“几千年的历史可以归结为如下一个简单的事实：自人类步入文明社会以来，经济能力和国家建构的不断发展日益加剧了社会不平等，但是，如果不采取措施对其进行控制，这一状况就难以改变。” 01 — 跟《21世纪资本论》可以互参。主题是说：人类有史以来，不平等一直在加剧，只有大...  

用户评价

不错，政治压迫才是不平等产生的根源，繁荣使其加重，而暴力才能化解

只有四类毁灭性灾难才能打破不平等，拉近阶级差距：1、大规模的瘟疫或流行病，如中世纪的黑死病；2、国家解体：如唐朝与罗马帝国的灭亡；3、大革命，如彻底推翻旧制度的俄国与中国革命；4、国际性战争：如大战期间通过大幅提高利息税与财产税，以及恶性通胀强制国民为战争牺牲，强行抹平贫富差距

不错，政治压迫才是不平等产生的根源，繁荣使其加重，而暴力才能化解

只有四类毁灭性灾难才能打破不平等，拉近阶级差距：1、大规模的瘟疫或流行病，如中世纪的黑死病；2、国家解体：如唐朝与罗马帝国的灭亡；3、大革命，如彻底推翻旧制度的俄国与中国革命；4、国际性战争：如大战期间通过大幅提高利息税与财产税，以及恶性通胀强制国民为战争牺牲，强行抹平贫富差距

只有灾难才能减少不平等