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 it never dies peacefully. 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. The "Four Horsemen" of leveling-mass-mobilization warfare, transformative revolutions, state collapse, and catastrophic plagues-have repeatedly destroyed the fortunes of the rich. 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.

The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century

We document a statistical association between the severity of the persecution, displacement and mass murder of Jews by the Nazis during World War II and long-run economic and political outcomes within Russia. Cities that experienced the Holocaust most intensely have grown less, and both cities and administrative districts (oblasts) where the Holocaust had the largest impact have worse economic and political outcomes since the collapse of the Soviet Union. We provide evidence that the lasting impact of the Holocaust may be attributable to a permanent change it induced in the social structure across different regions of Russia.

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Social Structure and Development: A Legacy of the Holocaust in Russia

This paper reviews recent contributions to the economics and economic history of famine. It provides a context for the history of famine in the twentieth century, which is unique. During the century, war and totalitarianism produced more famine deaths than did overpopulation and economic backwardness; yet by its end, economic growth and medical technology had almost eliminated the threat of major famines. Today's high-profile famines are "small" by historical standards. Topics analyzed include the role played by food markets in mitigating or exacerbating famine, the globalization of disaster relief, the enhanced role of human agency and entitlements, distinctive demography of certain twentieth-century famines, and future prospects for "making famine history."

Making famine history

The last remaining gap in the national accounts of Russia and the USSR in the twentieth century, 1913 to 1928, includes the Great War, the Civil War, and postwar recovery. Filling this gap, we find that the Russian economy did somewhat better in the Great War than was previously thought; in the Civil War it did correspondingly worse; war losses persisted into peacetime, and were not fully restored under the New Economic Policy. We compare this experience across regions and over time. The Great War and Civil War produced the deepest economic trauma of Russia's troubled twentieth century.

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Great War, Civil War, and Recovery: Russia's National Income, 1913 to 1928

This article presents estimates of aggregate and per capita GDP in constant prices for Europe over the period 1870–2000. Following the approach of Bairoch, we present figures for the continent as a whole and for individual countries on the basis of changing boundaries. This is complementary to the Maddison data-set, where country data are presented on the basis of constant boundaries. Data on the basis of the boundaries of the time are more convenient for comparative historical analysis, and can be combined more easily with data from contemporary sources, such as official statistical collections. Regional totals are also provided.

Aggregate and per capita GDP in Europe, 1870–2000: continental, regional and national data with changing boundaries

Farm to Factory: A Reinterpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution. By Robert C. Allen. The Princeton Economic History of the Western World. Edited by, Joel Mokyr. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003. Pp. xv+302. $45.00.

James R. Millar

Papers

Farm to Factory: A Reinterpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution. By Robert C. Allen. The Princeton Economic History of the Western World. Edited by, Joel Mokyr. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003. Pp. xv+302. $45.00.