
The Great Leveler
Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $19.77
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Joel Richards
-
By:
-
Walter Scheidel
About this listen
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. Inequality declines when carnage and disaster strike and increases when peace and stability return. 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 20th 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.
©2017 Princeton University Press (P)2017 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
-
Debt - Updated and Expanded
- The First 5,000 Years
- By: David Graeber
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 17 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here, anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom: He shows that before there was money, there was debt. For more than 5,000 years, since the beginnings of the first agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goods - that is, long before the invention of coins or cash. It is in this era, Graeber argues, that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors.
-
-
Transformative to the point of being revolutionary
- By James C. Samans on 08-14-16
By: David Graeber
-
Escape from Rome
- The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity
- By: Walter Scheidel
- Narrated by: Daniel Henning
- Length: 21 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The fall of the Roman Empire has long been considered one of the greatest disasters in history. But in this groundbreaking book, Walter Scheidel argues that Rome's dramatic collapse was actually the best thing that ever happened, clearing the path for Europe's economic rise and the creation of the modern age. Ranging across the entire premodern world, Escape from Rome offers new answers to some of the biggest questions in history: Why did the Roman Empire appear? Why did nothing like it ever return to Europe? And, above all, why did Europeans come to dominate the world?
-
-
Very interesting book, terrible narration
- By Matt Griffin on 12-03-19
By: Walter Scheidel
-
Seeing Like a State
- By: James C. Scott
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 16 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why do well-intentioned plans for improving the human condition go tragically awry? Author James C. Scott analyzes failed cases of large-scale authoritarian plans in a variety of fields. Centrally managed social plans misfire, Scott argues, when they impose schematic visions that do violence to complex interdependencies that are not - and cannot - be fully understood. Further, the success of designs for social organization depends upon the recognition that local, practical knowledge is as important as formal, epistemic knowledge.
-
-
Beats a dead horse and then beats it again
- By Nathan Parker on 10-29-20
By: James C. Scott
-
The Age of Revolution
- 1789-1848
- By: Eric Hobsbawm
- Narrated by: Hugh Kermode
- Length: 14 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This magisterial volume follows the death of ancient traditions, the triumph of new classes, and the emergence of new technologies, sciences, and ideologies, with vast intellectual daring and aphoristic elegance. Part of Eric Hobsbawm's epic four-volume history of the modern world, along with The Age of Capitalism, The Age of Empire, and The Age of Extremes.
-
-
Brilliant Materialist Interpretation
- By Earth Lover on 05-16-20
By: Eric Hobsbawm
-
Capital in the Twenty-First Century
- By: Thomas Piketty, Arthur Goldhammer - translator
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 24 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. But satisfactory answers have been hard to find for lack of adequate data and clear guiding theories.
-
-
The Financial Times' Critique Doesn't Detract
- By Madeleine on 05-22-14
By: Thomas Piketty, and others
-
Against the Grain
- A Deep History of the Earliest States
- By: James C. Scott
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why did humans abandon hunting and gathering for sedentary communities dependent on livestock and cereal grains and governed by precursors of today's states? Most people believe that plant and animal domestication allowed humans, finally, to settle down and form agricultural villages, towns, and states, which made possible civilization, law, public order, and a presumably secure way of living. But archaeological and historical evidence challenges this narrative.
-
-
World without Women
- By Paul Richards on 04-28-18
By: James C. Scott
-
Debt - Updated and Expanded
- The First 5,000 Years
- By: David Graeber
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 17 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here, anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom: He shows that before there was money, there was debt. For more than 5,000 years, since the beginnings of the first agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goods - that is, long before the invention of coins or cash. It is in this era, Graeber argues, that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors.
-
-
Transformative to the point of being revolutionary
- By James C. Samans on 08-14-16
By: David Graeber
-
Escape from Rome
- The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity
- By: Walter Scheidel
- Narrated by: Daniel Henning
- Length: 21 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The fall of the Roman Empire has long been considered one of the greatest disasters in history. But in this groundbreaking book, Walter Scheidel argues that Rome's dramatic collapse was actually the best thing that ever happened, clearing the path for Europe's economic rise and the creation of the modern age. Ranging across the entire premodern world, Escape from Rome offers new answers to some of the biggest questions in history: Why did the Roman Empire appear? Why did nothing like it ever return to Europe? And, above all, why did Europeans come to dominate the world?
-
-
Very interesting book, terrible narration
- By Matt Griffin on 12-03-19
By: Walter Scheidel
-
Seeing Like a State
- By: James C. Scott
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 16 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why do well-intentioned plans for improving the human condition go tragically awry? Author James C. Scott analyzes failed cases of large-scale authoritarian plans in a variety of fields. Centrally managed social plans misfire, Scott argues, when they impose schematic visions that do violence to complex interdependencies that are not - and cannot - be fully understood. Further, the success of designs for social organization depends upon the recognition that local, practical knowledge is as important as formal, epistemic knowledge.
-
-
Beats a dead horse and then beats it again
- By Nathan Parker on 10-29-20
By: James C. Scott
-
The Age of Revolution
- 1789-1848
- By: Eric Hobsbawm
- Narrated by: Hugh Kermode
- Length: 14 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This magisterial volume follows the death of ancient traditions, the triumph of new classes, and the emergence of new technologies, sciences, and ideologies, with vast intellectual daring and aphoristic elegance. Part of Eric Hobsbawm's epic four-volume history of the modern world, along with The Age of Capitalism, The Age of Empire, and The Age of Extremes.
-
-
Brilliant Materialist Interpretation
- By Earth Lover on 05-16-20
By: Eric Hobsbawm
-
Capital in the Twenty-First Century
- By: Thomas Piketty, Arthur Goldhammer - translator
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 24 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. But satisfactory answers have been hard to find for lack of adequate data and clear guiding theories.
-
-
The Financial Times' Critique Doesn't Detract
- By Madeleine on 05-22-14
By: Thomas Piketty, and others
-
Against the Grain
- A Deep History of the Earliest States
- By: James C. Scott
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why did humans abandon hunting and gathering for sedentary communities dependent on livestock and cereal grains and governed by precursors of today's states? Most people believe that plant and animal domestication allowed humans, finally, to settle down and form agricultural villages, towns, and states, which made possible civilization, law, public order, and a presumably secure way of living. But archaeological and historical evidence challenges this narrative.
-
-
World without Women
- By Paul Richards on 04-28-18
By: James C. Scott
-
The End of the World Is Just the Beginning
- Mapping the Collapse of Globalization
- By: Peter Zeihan
- Narrated by: Peter Zeihan
- Length: 16 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For generations, everything has been getting faster, better, and cheaper. Finally, we reached the point that almost anything you could ever want could be sent to your home within days - even hours - of when you decided you wanted it. America made that happen, but now America has lost interest in keeping it going.
-
-
Everyone dies except Americans
- By preetam on 06-22-22
By: Peter Zeihan
-
The Thirty Years War
- Europe's Tragedy
- By: Peter H. Wilson
- Narrated by: Matthew Waterson
- Length: 33 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Thirty Years War devastated seventeenth-century Europe, killing nearly a quarter of all Germans and laying waste to towns and countryside alike. Peter Wilson offers the first new history in a generation of a horrifying conflict that transformed the map of the modern world.
-
-
Less caffeine, narrator
- By Jeff Joyner on 02-12-24
By: Peter H. Wilson
-
Capital and Ideology
- By: Thomas Piketty, Arthur Goldhammer - translator
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 48 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thomas Piketty’s best-selling Capital in the Twenty-First Century galvanized global debate about inequality. In this audacious follow-up, Piketty challenges us to revolutionize how we think about politics, ideology, and history. He exposes the ideas that have sustained inequality for the past millennium, reveals why the shallow politics of right and left are failing us today, and outlines the structure of a fairer economic system.
-
-
Big thinking at its finest
- By Amazon Customer on 03-20-20
By: Thomas Piketty, and others
-
The War on the West
- By: Douglas Murray
- Narrated by: Douglas Murray
- Length: 12 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The War on the West, Douglas Murray shows how many well-meaning people have been fooled by hypocritical and inconsistent anti-West rhetoric. After all, if we must discard the ideas of Kant, Hume, and Mill for their opinions on race, shouldn’t we discard Marx, whose work is peppered with racial slurs and anti-Semitism? Embers of racism remain to be stamped out in America, but what about the raging racist inferno in the Middle East and Asia?
-
-
Every Human (seriously, everyone) Read This!
- By aaron on 04-27-22
By: Douglas Murray
-
Energy and Civilization
- A History
- By: Vaclav Smil
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 20 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this monumental history, Vaclav Smil provides a comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel-driven civilization and offers listeners a magisterial overview of humanity's energy eras.
-
-
Not a good format for this book
- By C. Hoogeboom on 05-19-18
By: Vaclav Smil
-
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
- By: Thomas S. Kuhn
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A good book may have the power to change the way we see the world, but a great book actually becomes part of our daily consciousness, pervading our thinking to the point that we take it for granted, and we forget how provocative and challenging its ideas once were - and still are. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is that kind of book.
-
-
The problem is not with the book
- By Marcus on 08-09-09
By: Thomas S. Kuhn
-
Why Nations Fail
- The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
- By: Daron Acemoglu, James A. Robinson
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 17 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine?
-
-
Pros and Cons of "Why Nations Fail"
- By Joshua Kim on 05-01-12
By: Daron Acemoglu, and others
-
The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution
- By: Francis Fukuyama
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 22 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Virtually all human societies were once organized tribally, yet over time most developed new political institutions which included a central state that could keep the peace and uniform laws that applied to all citizens. Some went on to create governments that were accountable to their constituents. We take these institutions for granted, but they are absent or are unable to perform in many of today’s developing countries—with often disastrous consequences for the rest of the world.
-
-
Few forests, but lots of trees
- By Steve Pagano on 10-05-15
By: Francis Fukuyama
-
Knowledge and Decisions
- By: Thomas Sowell
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 20 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This reissue of Thomas Sowell’s classic study of decision making, which includes a preface by the author, updates his seminal work in the context of The Vision of the Anointed. Sowell, one of America’s most celebrated public intellectuals, describes in concrete detail how knowledge is shared and disseminated throughout modern society. He warns that society suffers from an ever-widening gap between firsthand knowledge and decision making—a gap that threatens not only our economic and political efficiency but our very freedom.
-
-
Thomas Sowell's Greatest Work
- By Doug on 12-08-12
By: Thomas Sowell
-
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
- By: Walter Rodney, Angela Y. Davis - foreword
- Narrated by: Mirron Willis
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the leading thinkers and activists of the anticolonial revolution. In 1980, shortly after founding of the Working People's Alliance in Guyana, the 38-year-old Rodney would be assassinated. In his magnum opus, Rodney incisively argues that grasping "the great divergence" between the West and the rest can only be explained as the exploitation of the latter by the former. This meticulously researched analysis of the repercussions of European colonialism in Africa remains an indispensable study for grasping global inequality today.
-
-
A Superb must read for everyone
- By Joy on 04-16-19
By: Walter Rodney, and others
-
Europe
- A History
- By: Norman Davies
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 61 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Norman Davies captures it all - the rise and fall of Rome, the sweeping invasions of Alaric and Atilla, the Norman Conquests, the Papal struggles for power, the Renaissance and the Reformation, the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, Europe's rise to become the powerhouse of the world, and its eclipse in our own century, following two devastating World Wars.
-
-
My Favorite Historian
- By bernickus on 05-14-19
By: Norman Davies
-
The Price of Time
- The Real Story of Interest
- By: Edward Chancellor
- Narrated by: Luis Soto
- Length: 15 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the beginning was the loan, and the loan carried interest. For at least five millennia people have been borrowing and lending at interest. Yet as capitalism became established from the late Middle Ages onwards, denunciations of interest were tempered because interest was a necessary reward for lenders to part with their capital. And interest performs many other vital functions: it encourages people to save; enables them to place a value on precious assets, such as houses and all manner of financial securities; and allows us to price risk.
-
-
Big landscape in time and subjects; Austrian view
- By Philo on 08-29-22
Critic reviews
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
The Devil's Financial Dictionary
- By: Jason Zweig
- Narrated by: Dana Hickox
- Length: 5 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Devil's Financial Dictionary skewers the plutocrats and bureaucrats who gave us exploding mortgages, freakish risks, and banks too big to fail. And it distills the complexities, absurdities, and pomposities of Wall Street into plain truths and aphorisms anyone can understand. An indispensable survival guide to the hostile wilderness of today's financial markets, The Devil's Financial Dictionary delivers practical insights with a scorpion's sting.
-
-
Too much fun for such dismal topics!
- By Philo on 10-17-15
By: Jason Zweig
-
As Gods Among Men
- A History of the Rich in the West
- By: Guido Alfani
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 16 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alfani argues that the position of the rich and super-rich in Western society has always been intrinsically fragile; their very presence has inspired social unease. In the Middle Ages, an excessive accumulation of wealth was considered sinful; the rich were expected not to appear to be wealthy. Eventually, the rich were deemed useful when they used their wealth to help their communities in times of crisis. Yet in the twenty-first century, the rich and the super-rich have been exceptionally reluctant to contribute to the common good in times of crisis.
-
-
Sympathy for the devil
- By Terri on 03-01-24
By: Guido Alfani
-
Escape from Rome
- The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity
- By: Walter Scheidel
- Narrated by: Daniel Henning
- Length: 21 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The fall of the Roman Empire has long been considered one of the greatest disasters in history. But in this groundbreaking book, Walter Scheidel argues that Rome's dramatic collapse was actually the best thing that ever happened, clearing the path for Europe's economic rise and the creation of the modern age. Ranging across the entire premodern world, Escape from Rome offers new answers to some of the biggest questions in history: Why did the Roman Empire appear? Why did nothing like it ever return to Europe? And, above all, why did Europeans come to dominate the world?
-
-
Very interesting book, terrible narration
- By Matt Griffin on 12-03-19
By: Walter Scheidel
-
How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia
- A Novel
- By: Mohsin Hamid
- Narrated by: Mohsin Hamid
- Length: 4 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the internationally bestselling author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, the boldly imagined tale of a poor boy's quest for wealth and love. His first two novels established Mohsin Hamid as a radically inventive storyteller with his finger on the world's pulse. How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia meets that reputation - and exceeds it.
-
-
The title is misleading, I loved this quick read.
- By Brad Mills on 04-28-17
By: Mohsin Hamid
-
Devil Take the Hindmost
- A History of Financial Speculation
- By: Edward Chancellor
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 13 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Devil Take the Hindmost is a lively, original, and challenging history of stock market speculation from the 17th century to the present day. Edward Chancellor traces the origins of the speculative spirit back to ancient Rome and chronicles its revival in the modern world.
-
-
Well-picked scenes span tulips up to 20 years ago
- By Philo on 03-07-19
-
What Is Ancient History?
- By: Walter Scheidel
- Narrated by: Michael Langan
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's easy to think that ancient history is, well, ancient history—obsolete, irrelevant, unjustifiably focused on Greece and Rome, and at risk of extinction. In What Is Ancient History?, Walter Scheidel presents a compelling case for a new kind of ancient history—a global history that captures antiquity's pivotal role as a decisive phase in human development, one that provided the shared foundation of our world and continues to shape our lives today.
By: Walter Scheidel
-
The Devil's Financial Dictionary
- By: Jason Zweig
- Narrated by: Dana Hickox
- Length: 5 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Devil's Financial Dictionary skewers the plutocrats and bureaucrats who gave us exploding mortgages, freakish risks, and banks too big to fail. And it distills the complexities, absurdities, and pomposities of Wall Street into plain truths and aphorisms anyone can understand. An indispensable survival guide to the hostile wilderness of today's financial markets, The Devil's Financial Dictionary delivers practical insights with a scorpion's sting.
-
-
Too much fun for such dismal topics!
- By Philo on 10-17-15
By: Jason Zweig
-
As Gods Among Men
- A History of the Rich in the West
- By: Guido Alfani
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 16 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alfani argues that the position of the rich and super-rich in Western society has always been intrinsically fragile; their very presence has inspired social unease. In the Middle Ages, an excessive accumulation of wealth was considered sinful; the rich were expected not to appear to be wealthy. Eventually, the rich were deemed useful when they used their wealth to help their communities in times of crisis. Yet in the twenty-first century, the rich and the super-rich have been exceptionally reluctant to contribute to the common good in times of crisis.
-
-
Sympathy for the devil
- By Terri on 03-01-24
By: Guido Alfani
-
Escape from Rome
- The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity
- By: Walter Scheidel
- Narrated by: Daniel Henning
- Length: 21 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The fall of the Roman Empire has long been considered one of the greatest disasters in history. But in this groundbreaking book, Walter Scheidel argues that Rome's dramatic collapse was actually the best thing that ever happened, clearing the path for Europe's economic rise and the creation of the modern age. Ranging across the entire premodern world, Escape from Rome offers new answers to some of the biggest questions in history: Why did the Roman Empire appear? Why did nothing like it ever return to Europe? And, above all, why did Europeans come to dominate the world?
-
-
Very interesting book, terrible narration
- By Matt Griffin on 12-03-19
By: Walter Scheidel
-
How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia
- A Novel
- By: Mohsin Hamid
- Narrated by: Mohsin Hamid
- Length: 4 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the internationally bestselling author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, the boldly imagined tale of a poor boy's quest for wealth and love. His first two novels established Mohsin Hamid as a radically inventive storyteller with his finger on the world's pulse. How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia meets that reputation - and exceeds it.
-
-
The title is misleading, I loved this quick read.
- By Brad Mills on 04-28-17
By: Mohsin Hamid
-
Devil Take the Hindmost
- A History of Financial Speculation
- By: Edward Chancellor
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 13 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Devil Take the Hindmost is a lively, original, and challenging history of stock market speculation from the 17th century to the present day. Edward Chancellor traces the origins of the speculative spirit back to ancient Rome and chronicles its revival in the modern world.
-
-
Well-picked scenes span tulips up to 20 years ago
- By Philo on 03-07-19
-
What Is Ancient History?
- By: Walter Scheidel
- Narrated by: Michael Langan
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's easy to think that ancient history is, well, ancient history—obsolete, irrelevant, unjustifiably focused on Greece and Rome, and at risk of extinction. In What Is Ancient History?, Walter Scheidel presents a compelling case for a new kind of ancient history—a global history that captures antiquity's pivotal role as a decisive phase in human development, one that provided the shared foundation of our world and continues to shape our lives today.
By: Walter Scheidel
-
Talking to My Daughter About the Economy
- Or, How Capitalism Works - and How It Fails
- By: Yanis Varoufakis
- Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
- Length: 4 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Yanis Varoufakis has appeared before heads of nations, assemblies of experts, and countless students around the world. Now, he faces his most important - and difficult - audience yet. Using clear language and vivid examples, Varoufakis offers a series of letters to his young daughter about the economy: how it operates, where it came from, how it benefits some while impoverishing others. Taking bankers and politicians to task, he explains the historical origins of inequality among and within nations, questions the pervasive notion that everything has its price, and shows why economic instability is a chronic risk.
-
-
Super Digestible
- By Sean on 06-30-22
By: Yanis Varoufakis
-
The Looting Machine
- Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers, and the Theft of Africa's Wealth
- By: Tom Burgis
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The trade in oil, gas, gems, metals, and rare earth minerals wreaks havoc in Africa. During the years when Brazil, India, China, and the other "emerging markets" have transformed their economies, Africa's resource states remained tethered to the bottom of the industrial supply chain. While Africa accounts for about 30 percent of the world's reserves of hydrocarbons and minerals and 14 percent of the world's population, its share of global manufacturing stood in 2011 exactly where it stood in 2000: at 1 percent.
-
-
Frightening, Fascinating, Fatiguing
- By Scott on 07-29-18
By: Tom Burgis
-
The Power Elite
- By: C. Wright Mills, Alan Wolfe - afterword
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 15 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First published in 1956, The Power Elite stands as a contemporary classic of social science and social criticism. C. Wright Mills examines and critiques the organization of power in the United States, calling attention to three firmly interlocked prongs of power: the military, corporate, and political elite. The Power Elite can be enjoyed as a good account of what was taking place in America at the time it was written, but its underlying question of whether America is as democratic in practice as it is in theory continues to matter very much today.
-
-
Best analysis of America I ever read
- By Kindle Customer on 05-11-21
By: C. Wright Mills, and others
-
In This Valley There Are Tigers
- By: Charles A. McDonald
- Narrated by: Virtual Voice
- Length: 21 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1964, Charles A. McDonald was at Camp Khe Sanh before the first wholesale introduction of North Vietnamese Army troops onto the battlefield against U.S. forces. For twenty-four years in war and peace, McDonald served his country in its elite units as an Airborne Infantryman and Special Forces soldier. He trained and armed Bru tribesmen, Chinese mercenaries, Vietmamese Airborne and Special Forces troops. Stories as seen through his eyes "In This Valley There Are Tigers", McDonald tells a narrative of the personal violence and desperate suicide attacks in combat with vivid detail as it was...
-
-
Great story written well
- By Randy Greer on 05-16-25
-
Why the West Rules - for Now
- The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future
- By: Ian Morris
- Narrated by: Antony Ferguson
- Length: 24 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sometime around 1750, English entrepreneurs unleashed the astounding energies of steam and coal, and the world was forever changed. The emergence of factories, railroads, and gunboats propelled the West’s rise to power in the nineteenth century, and the development of computers and nuclear weapons in the 20th century secured its global supremacy.
-
-
Compelling and infuriating take at World History
- By Skeptical on 09-11-11
By: Ian Morris
-
The Storm Before the Storm
- The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic
- By: Mike Duncan
- Narrated by: Mike Duncan
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Roman Republic was one of the most remarkable achievements in the history of civilization. After its founding in 509 BCE, the Romans refused to allow a single leader to seize control of the state and grab absolute power. The Roman commitment to cooperative government and peaceful transfers of power was unmatched in the history of the ancient world. But by the year 133 BCE, the republican system was unable to cope with the vast empire Rome now ruled.
-
-
Interesting, albeit a bit dry
- By Aria on 11-14-17
By: Mike Duncan
-
The Age of Revolution
- 1789-1848
- By: Eric Hobsbawm
- Narrated by: Hugh Kermode
- Length: 14 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This magisterial volume follows the death of ancient traditions, the triumph of new classes, and the emergence of new technologies, sciences, and ideologies, with vast intellectual daring and aphoristic elegance. Part of Eric Hobsbawm's epic four-volume history of the modern world, along with The Age of Capitalism, The Age of Empire, and The Age of Extremes.
-
-
Brilliant Materialist Interpretation
- By Earth Lover on 05-16-20
By: Eric Hobsbawm
-
Merchant Kings
- When Companies Ruled the World, 1600-1900
- By: Stephen R. Bown
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It was an era when monopoly trading companies were the unofficial agents of European expansion, controlling vast numbers of people and huge tracts of land, and taking on governmental and military functions. The leaders of these trading enterprises exercised virtually unaccountable, dictatorial political power over millions of people.
-
-
Very interesting
- By richard on 02-20-24
By: Stephen R. Bown
-
The Price of Inequality
- How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future
- By: Joseph E. Stiglitz
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The top 1 percent of Americans control 40 percent of the nation's wealth. And, as Joseph E. Stiglitz explains, while those at the top enjoy the best health care, education, and benefits of wealth, they fail to realize that "their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live." Stiglitz draws on his deep understanding of economics to show that growing inequality is not inevitable. He examines our current state, then teases out its implications for democracy, for monetary and budgetary policy, and for globalization. He closes with a plan for a more just and prosperous future.
-
-
One side is never enough....
- By Michael on 08-08-12
-
A Splendid Exchange
- How Trade Shaped the World
- By: William J. Bernstein
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 17 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In A Splendid Exchange, William J. Bernstein tells the extraordinary story of global commerce from its prehistoric origins to the myriad controversies surrounding it today. He transports listeners from ancient sailing ships that brought the silk trade from China to Rome in the second century to the rise and fall of the Portuguese monopoly in spices in the 16th.
-
-
Very interesting and Germane to Today's World
- By Mark on 07-18-08
-
Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China
- By: Ezra F. Vogel
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 33 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Once described by Mao Zedong as a "needle inside a ball of cotton", Deng was the pragmatic yet disciplined driving force behind China's radical transformation in the late 20th century. He confronted the damage wrought by the Cultural Revolution, dissolved Mao's cult of personality, and loosened the policies that had stunted China's growth. Obsessed with modernization, Deng opened trade relations with the West, which lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty. Yet he also answered to his authoritarian roots, most notably when he ordered the crackdown in 1989 at Tiananmen Square.
-
-
Another butcher of the Chinese language
- By Jack Hanson on 09-19-21
By: Ezra F. Vogel
-
Kaput
- The End of the German Miracle
- By: Wolfgang Münchau
- Narrated by: Mark Elstob
- Length: 6 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Kaput, Wolfgang Münchau argues that the weaknesses of Germany's economy have, in fact, been brewing for decades. The neo-mercantilist policies of the German state, driven by close connections between the country's industrial and political elite, have left Germany technologically behind over-reliant on authoritarian Russia and China—and with little sign of being able to adapt to the digital realities of the 21st century. It is an essential read for anyone interested in the future of Europe's biggest economy.
-
-
a narrow account of germanys troubles
- By Rachel Evan on 05-05-25
By: Wolfgang Münchau
A depressing but informative read
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The more society attempts to control nature, the more nature resists that same control.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Fascinating and astonishingly broad
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Spot On
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Amazing book that shows the inequality of the past
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
As depressing as it is convincing
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Both immense in scope and tragic.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The four horseman of the past are not desired for the future.
Inequality is inevitable.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Depressingly Essential
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Important insights, tediously told
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.