El gran nivelador

Inequality is a problem that worries the whole world today. But those who study it often shrink back to recent times and forget the long-term lessons of history. This ambitious and impressive book studies the evolution of inequality from primitive societies to the present day and reveals that the forces that have reduced it throughout history have been the "four horsemen" of violence: war, revolution, collapse states and major epidemics. Walter Scheidel takes us in these pages on a fascinating excursion through the history of wars, of revolutions (such as the French or Russian in 1917), of the collapse of states (of the Roman Empire or of the Mayans), of the pandemics (such as the Black Death). Understanding how these leveling forces have acted can be critical to finding policies that allow us to peacefully combat inequality in the future.