Walter Scheidel

Historian @Stanford | “The Great Leveler” “Escape from Rome” “What is Ancient History?” | 🇦🇹🇺🇸🌎🌍🌏

[Walter Scheidel @WalterScheidel]

What *is* ‘ancient history’? Why it is much bigger and more important than we might think, how generations of scholars have messed it up, how we can do it justice – and why ‘Classics’ needs to go: https://t.co/0GqNVScgWg

[Walter Scheidel @WalterScheidel]

@BretDevereaux Who have learned the language of the people?

[Walter Scheidel @WalterScheidel]

@BretDevereaux How do you study the people of Teotihuacan?

[Walter Scheidel @WalterScheidel]

@peterfrankopan @Cambridge_Uni Thanks for braving the heat wave to join us!

[Walter Scheidel @WalterScheidel]

A fascinating paper featuring two children of full sibling unions, among many other new findings: Consanguinity and Social Structure in the Roman World: A Diachronic Genomic Analysis https://t.co/2iNpchOcgh

[Walter Scheidel @WalterScheidel]

@GutkinLen @CTMathewes It’s certainly true that the Times insinuates this but that’s not quite the same as simply presenting it as a fact, as you do. But I can tell you’ll never admit that, so I won’t belabor the point.

[Walter Scheidel @WalterScheidel]

@GutkinLen @CTMathewes Where does the Times author ascribe that rationale — tainted politics — to me? You are imagining this.

[Walter Scheidel @WalterScheidel]

@GutkinLen @CTMathewes Unfortunately @GutkinLen does worse: the statement that “Walter Scheidel wants to “get rid of classics altogether” because of its tainted politics” is literally made up — where do the last five words come from? Not from the Times article, or anywhere else I know of.

[Walter Scheidel @WalterScheidel]

@GutkinLen @CTMathewes That wasn’t handled well in that piece — the first half of what I said (about ending the academic field [as an organizational template]) is presented as a quote, the second half about reconfiguring the study of the material isn’t attributed to me and is made to look unrelated.

[Mark Koyama @MarkKoyama]

Guest post by Jack Goldstone: Is the Great Divergence Debate really over? https://t.co/zJvz7uc1uP

[Walter Scheidel @WalterScheidel]

After the Last David Graeber Post; or, Once Again Unto the Breach..., by @delong https://t.co/X6hkefUmV6

[Walter Scheidel @WalterScheidel]

Very smart indeed.

[Branko Milanovic @BrankoMilan]

A review of Beckert's "Capitalism" and my "Great Global Transformation".
(A very tough, and very smart, review,)
How not to talk about capitalism
The more it penetrates our daily lives, the less we seem to understand the “system that runs the world”
https://t.co/fpigeQDS7R

[Walter Scheidel @WalterScheidel]

Modeling the great leveler: how war reduces inequality

[Ralph Lütticke @RalphLuet]

🎣WP alert🎣:

THE GREAT LEVELER ACCORDING TO HANK

joined with Gernot Müller, @MSchularick and @TimothyAMeyer who did outstanding work on this paper and is on the job market.
Perfect candidate for macro / international / econ history. Do check him out!
https://t.co/jBTDEVYrIU

[Walter Scheidel @WalterScheidel]

Semiyarka is not “in the heart of the Eurasian steppe” but next to the riparian forests of the Irtysh valley, and not very far from the southernmost fringes of the Siberian woodlands.

[🅰ntiquity Journal @AntiquityJ]

Archaeologists have unearthed a Bronze Age metropolis in the heart of the Eurasian steppe: an early form of city as complex as those of contemporary, more traditionally 'urban' civilisations, showing how steppe polities were just as sophisticated.

🆓 https://t.co/Qam5cMOi03

[Walter Scheidel @WalterScheidel]

One of my favorite commentators asks whether my argument about the benefits of post-Roman competitive fragmentation is still relevant: “Maybe, Europeans should remain delighted that Rome fell, and despite many efforts, has never come back.”

[Martin Wolf @martinwolf_]

Martin Wolf: Can a fragmented Europe continue to prosper? https://t.co/BSeghldqLS

[Walter Scheidel @WalterScheidel]

300,000 kilometers of Roman roads: Itiner-e: A high-resolution dataset of roads of the Roman Empire | Scientific Data https://t.co/KjggHydcJj

[Walter Scheidel @WalterScheidel]

So very true.

[Taisu Zhang @ZhangTaisu]

It now feels like an almost annual tradition for historians to spend the day after the Economics Nobel is announced criticizing the award winners’ lack of historical knowledge or analytical finesse. While I sympathize with quite a few of these exercises on their narrow intellectual merits, it’s also worth pointing out that, to a very large extent, these economists are simply occupying academic territory that historians have voluntarily abandoned.

For two decades now, historians have almost given up on writing comparative or global histories on major economic or institutional phenomena. As a result, when they critique the economists who pursue these projects for missing this detail or overlooking that source, one cannot help but wonder if they themselves could have done any better—in fact, if they could have written *any* book of comparable scope. To be sure, one can still criticize something without being able to produce a viable replacement oneself, but in such circumstances the criticism does seem a bit cheaper.

Not to mention, if the historian profession voluntarily gives up so much of its ability to explain large-scale economic, political, or institutional phenomena, then small wonder it is rapidly declining in influence, visibility, and draw.

[Dr Anton Howes @antonhowes]

Many won't appreciate this. But Mokyr getting the Economics Nobel is a huge, huge win for History!

[FleischMagazin @FleischMagazin]

Wenn das die amerikanischen Tech-Bros mal mitbekommen: Der Althistoriker Walter Scheidel ist der Meinung, dass der Untergang des römischen Reichs das Beste ist, das uns passieren konnte. Nur so hätten sich die Moderne und ihreDemokratien entwickeln können.
https://t.co/J0nFEuio3i

[Walter Scheidel @WalterScheidel]

@Flavio_hsf @pseudoerasmus The order of publication will be Wyman … Morris ………….. Scheidel.

[Peter Turchin @Peter_Turchin]

Published: The Great Holocene Transformation

https://t.co/IPQat2TuJy