scholarly journals The Global History of Inequality

2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-323
Author(s):  
Pim de Zwart
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
Demographic History ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Governmental Organization ◽  
Occupy Movement ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

Inequality has increased in most Western countries since the early 1980s. In a recent report, the international non-governmental organization Oxfam noted that the twenty-six richest people in the world own as much wealth as the poorest fifty per cent of the world's population. Discontent with the growing disparities in wealth and income has soared in recent years, especially in the wake of the 2007/2008 financial crisis and the “Great Recession” that followed. The Occupy movement protested against the greed of the “one per cent”, referring to the highly skewed income distribution in the US. Former US president Barack Obama proclaimed the growth of within-country economic inequality as “the defining challenge of our time”. Yet, he enacted few policies that reduced inequality during his two terms in office; the Gini coefficient in the US actually increased slightly between 2007 and 2016. His successor, whose election has often been explained as a consequence of these high levels of inequality, has slashed taxes for the wealthy, probably causing further rises in inequality in the future. In this essay, I will review two recent economic history books that examine the historical roots of within-country inequality on a global scale: Branko Milanovic's Global Inequality (2016) and Walter Scheidel's The Great Leveler (2017). Formerly a lead economist at the World Bank, Milanovic is a well-known scholar working in the field of economic inequality, while Scheidel has a background as a specialist in the economic, social, and demographic history of antiquity.

A Long Stagnation, or Capitalism without Growth

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louçã Francisco ◽  
Ash Michael
Keyword(s):  
Great Recession ◽  
World Economy ◽  
Economic Stability ◽  
Secular Stagnation ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Growth Prospects

Chapter 11 assesses the growth prospects of the world economy. The history of global economic doomsaying is traced briefly, a frequently reasonable position that has not done well with the facts for the past hundred years. Capitalism has been adept at escaping from the pit and pendulum. A set of global imbalances is then reviewed that are seen as posing a severe threat to global economic stability and certainly to the prospects for sustainable and equitable growth. The Great Recession following the Crash of 2007–8 might be “different this time.” Historical and contemporary fears of “secular stagnation” are discussed but the speculative nature of stagnationist assessments is acknowledged.

The Great Influenza

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel K. Cohn, Jr.
Keyword(s):  
Social Behaviour ◽  
East Coast ◽  
World History ◽  
Collective Violence ◽  
Large Cities ◽  
Surgeon General ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of Disease ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

This chapter examines evidence principally from the US that the Great Influenza provoked profiteering by landlords, undertakers, vendors of fruit, pharmacists, and doctors, but shows that such complaints were rare and confined mostly to large cities on the East Coast. It then investigates anti-social advice and repressive decrees on the part of municipalities, backed by advice from the US Surgeon General and prominent physicians attacking ‘spitters, coughers, and sneezers’, which included state and municipal ordinances against kissing and even ‘big talkers’. It then surveys legislation on compulsory and recommended mask wearing. Yet this chapter finds no protest or collective violence against the diseased victims or any other ‘others’ suspected of disseminating the virus. Despite physicians’ and lawmakers’ encouragement of anti-social behaviour, mass volunteerism and abnegation instead unfolded to an extent never before witnessed in the world history of disease.

The Historiography of Environmental History

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. R. McNeill
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
Industrial Pollution ◽  
Full Scale ◽  
Environmental Concerns ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter discusses the emergence of environmental history, which developed in the context of the environmental concerns that began in the 1960s with worries about local industrial pollution, but which has since evolved into a full-scale global crisis of climate change. Environmental history is ‘the history of the relationship between human societies and the rest of nature’. It includes three chief areas of inquiry: the study of material environmental history, political and policy-related environmental history, and a form of environmental history which concerns what humans have thought, believed, written, and more rarely, painted, sculpted, sung, or danced that deals with the relationship between society and nature. Since 1980, environmental history has come to flourish in many corners of the world, and scholars everywhere have found models, approaches, and perspectives rather different from those developed for the US context.

scholarly journals Should 1974 be considered a watershed year in the economic history of the world?

1980 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 45-49
Author(s):  
G. Jan Hupkes
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Market Mechanism ◽  
Oil Consumption ◽  
Payments System ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Oil Crisis ◽  
Economic Future

The early 1970s marked a turning point in mankind's economic fortunes and the author takes 1974 as an 'artificial' vantage point from which to look back, but also forward. Several forces led to the shocks of the seventies: the breaking down in the discipline of the international payments system, rising inflation, the oil crisis, the West's loss of strategic military initiative to the East. The author outlines what ought to be done to improve the economic outlook for the 1980s: The international payments system must be placed on a more stable and disciplined footing, inflation must be controlled by balancing of national budgets, the energy crisis must be contained by reduction of oil consumption via the price mechanism. In South Africa the economic watershed year was 1976; two years later than that of the world economy in general. Since then a policy of strict financial discipline has led to a record surplus in balance of payments, which together with new emphasis on the importance of the free market mechanism and increasing energy self-sufficiency, promises a better economic future for South Africa than for many other countries.Die vroee 1970s was 'n keerpunt in die mensdom se ekonomiese lotgevalle en die skrywer neem 1974 as 'n 'kunsmatige' uitsigpunt vanwaar hy terug kyk, maar ook vorentoe. Verskeie magte het gelei tot die skokke van die sewentigs: die aftakeling van die dissipline van die internasionale betalingstelsel, stygende inflasie, die oliiekrisis, en die Weste se afstand van strategiese militere inisiatief aan die Ooste. Die skrywer dui aan wat gedoen moet word om die ekonomiese vooruitsigte vir die 1980s te verbeter: Die internasionale betalingstelsel moet op 'n meer stabiele en gedissiplineerde grondslag geplaas word, inflasie moet deur die balansering van nasionale begrotings beheer word, die energiekrisis moet via die prysmeganisme deur verminderde olieverbrulk beteuel word. In Suid-Afrika was die ekonomiese waterskeidingsjaar 1976; twee jaar later as die van die wereld-ekonomie in die algemeen. Sedertdien het 'n beleid van streng finansiele dissipline gelei tot 'n rekord surplus op die betalingsbalans, wat saam met nuwe klem op die belangrikheid van die vrye markmeganisme en toenemende energie-selfvoorsiening, 'n bater ekonomiese toekoms vir Suid-Afrika as vir baie ander lande beloof.

A Concise Economic History of the World: From Paleolithic Times to the Present

1990 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 864 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Barbezat ◽  
Rondo Cameron
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

The Strait of Magellan—a Gateway to New Worlds

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mauricio Onetto Pavez
Keyword(s):  
Global Scale ◽  
Modern World ◽  
American Continent ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Strait Of Magellan ◽  
The World ◽  
The Strait Of Magellan ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Time

The year 2020 marks the five hundredth anniversary of the “discovery” of the Strait of Magellan. The unveiling of this passage between 1519 and 1522 allowed the planet to be circumnavigated for the first time in the history of humanity. All maritime routes could now be connected, and the idea of the Earth, in its geographical, cosmographic, and philosophical dimensions, gained its definitive meaning. This discovery can be considered one of the founding events of the modern world and of the process of globalization that still continues today. This new connectivity awoke an immediate interest in Europe that led to the emergence of a political consciousness of possession, domination, and territorial occupation generalized on a global scale, and the American continent was the starting point for this. This consciousness also inspired a desire for knowledge about this new form of inhabiting the world. Various fields of knowledge were redefined thanks to the new spaces and measurements produced by the discovery of the southern part of the Americas, which was recorded in books on cosmography, natural history, cartography, and manuscripts, circulating mainly between the Americas and Europe. All these processes transformed the Strait of Magellan into a geopolitical space coveted by Europeans during the 16th century. As an interoceanic connector, it was used to imagine commercial routes to the Orient and political projects that could sustain these dynamics. It was also conceived as a space to speculate on the potential wealth in the extreme south of the continent. In addition, on the Spanish side, some agents of the Crown considered it a strategic place for imperial projections and the defense of the Americas.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document