Paulina Matera, Rafał Matera: The four horsemen of the Apocalypse. Remarks on the book The great leveler. Violence and the history of inequality from the Stone Age to the twenty-first century by Walter Scheidel. Princeton-Oxford: Princeton University
Paulina Matera, Rafał Matera: The four horsemen of the Apocalypse. Remarks on the book The great leveler. Violence and the history of inequality from the Stone Age to the twenty-first century by Walter Scheidel. Princeton-Oxford: Princeton University

Summary/Abstract: This article constitutes a review of the book “The great leveler” written by Walter Scheidel. Werefer to the issue of constructing theories and pointing out the regularities in history. We present thescientific background of the author, as well as his inspirations from other publications of a similarkind, notably “Capital in the twenty-first century” by Thomas Piketty. We analyse the elements ofScheidel’s thesis that the levelling of income inequalities within the framework of states may comeabout only from violent shocks: mobilization warfare, transformative revolution, state failure, andlethal pandemics. We comment on each of these factors, offering a critical approach to the author’sinterpretation and directions for further research. We also argue that for the studies of incomedisparities the estimation of data about the middle class is crucial, as the lack of or small scope ofit is the most dangerous for domestic stability. The estimations of the top 1% of the richest meansless in this context. We also propose a greater focus on the impact of welfare politics in democraticstates. However, we highly appreciate the author’s thoroughness in compiling such a greatamount of data as well as his logical argumentation, which make his work valuable, convincing,and intellectually stimulating.

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