A Brief History of Equality, Thomas Piketty
A Brief History of Equality, Thomas Piketty
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A Brief History of Equality

Author: Thomas Piketty, Steven Rendall

Narrator: Fred Sanders

Unabridged: 8 hr 43 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/19/2022

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included


Synopsis

The world’s leading economist of inequality presents a short but sweeping and surprisingly optimistic history of human progress toward equality despite crises, disasters, and backsliding, a perfect introduction to the ideas developed in his monumental earlier books.It is 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.Piketty guides us with elegance and concision through the great movements that have made the modern world for better and worse: the growth of capitalism, revolutions, imperialism, slavery, wars, and the building of the welfare state. It’s a history of violence and social struggle, punctuated by regression and disaster. But through it all, Piketty shows, human societies have moved fitfully toward a more just distribution of income and assets, a reduction of racial and gender inequalities, and greater access to health care, education, and the rights of citizenship.Our rough march forward is political and ideological, an endless fight against injustice. To keep moving, Piketty argues, we need to learn and commit to what works, to institutional, legal, social, fiscal, and educational systems that can make equality a lasting reality. At the same time, we need to resist historical amnesia and the temptations of cultural separatism and intellectual compartmentalization. At stake is the quality of life for billions of people.We know we can do better, Piketty concludes. The past shows us how. The future is up to us.

About Thomas Piketty

Thomas Piketty is Professor of Economics at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales. 

About Fred Sanders

Fred Sanders is a Yale graduate, originally from New York, whose acting credits include performances on Broadway (Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story) and national tours (Driving Miss Daisy and Big River). Since moving to LA in 1991, he has worked on TV (Seinfeld, The West Wing, Will & Grace) and film (The Shadow, Candyman) in addition to narrating over 150 audiobooks.


Reviews

Goodreads review by David on March 06, 2022

The gist of Thomas Piketty's latest, A Brief History of Equality, is that inequality has been shrinking, not growing, for the past 300 years. Rotten institutions have been and continue to be replaced by better (or at least less rotten) ones. Income per person has increased (using today's purchasing......more

Goodreads review by P.E. on June 09, 2022

In Praise of Reciprocity This work by left-wing economist Thomas Piketty is more or less a downsizing of Capital and Ideology with a few extra developments on the events occurring from early 2020 to August 2021. It deals with the many unjust forms of inequality we know today, documents how they persi......more

Goodreads review by Kuszma on February 25, 2025

"Akkor hát foglaljuk össze! A jóléti állam és a progresszív adó, miután eljutottak saját logikájuk útjának végére, lehetővé teszik, hogy lerakjuk a demokratikus, önigazgató és decentralizált szocializmus új formájának alapjait, amely a hatalom és a tulajdon állandó körforgására épül." Ennyike. Proble......more

Goodreads review by Suman on July 12, 2022

Guess what! Piketty wrote a short book. 😁. This is a pretty powerful book which has the intellectual rigour of his previous books, but is still more focused on the main arguments than the data. Many authors are thinking of reforming capitalism. Piketty wants to reform socialism. He thinks the mistak......more

Goodreads review by Thomas Ray on June 15, 2023

A Brief History of Equality, Thomas Piketty, 2021 in French, 2022 in English, 274 pages, Dewey 305.09, ISBN 9780674273559. Translated by Steven Randall. Abrogate the untaxed-free-movement-of-capital treaties. Tax the rich. Big changes in law and society have been occurring regularly since 1780: it's......more


Quotes

“[Piketty] possesses the rarest of abilities to analyze staggering quantities of information and offer original insights into the structures that underpin our economies…This elegant and short book will allow any reader to understand the glory.” Irish Times (Dublin)

“An activist’s history, part reckoning with the past and part manifesto for the future, designed to bolster the courage of those who would continue the forward march.” Literary Review

“For Piketty, the arc of history is long, but it does bend toward equality. There is nothing automatic about it, however: as citizens, we must be ready to fight for it…This book is here to help.” Esther Duflo, Nobel Laureate in economic sciences

“[An] exceptional book…Piketty makes past progress into a call to continue the struggle for justice.” Daniel Markovits, author of The Meritocracy Trap

“A succinct synthesis of the important lessons of his work to date—a valuable resource for all of us trying to build an economy that is driven by value creation for all and not value extraction for the few.” Mariana Mazzucato, author of Mission Economy


Awards

  • New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice
  • #1 Amazon bestseller