A Brief History of Equality

The world’s leading economist of inequality presents a concise, sweeping and surprisingly optimistic history of human progress toward equality despite crises, disasters, and backsliding.


It’s easy to be pessimistic about inequality. We know it has increased dramatically in many parts of the world over the past two generations. No one has done more to reveal the problem than Thomas Piketty. Now, in this surprising and powerful new work, Piketty reminds us that the grand sweep of history gives us reasons to be optimistic. Over the centuries, he shows, we have been moving toward greater equality.