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Social Sciences and Humanities

D-Index
58
Citations
12873
World Ranking
1652
National Ranking
786

Research.com Recognitions

  • 2015 - Fellow of John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation

Overview

Walter Scheidel is affiliated with Stanford University in the United States and specializes in social sciences, with a focus on anthropology, sociology and political science, economics and econometrics, archaeology, and genetics.

The scholar's research addresses topics such as historical economic and social studies, Chinese history and philosophy, classical antiquity studies, colonialism, slavery and trade, Eurasian exchange networks, archaeology and historical studies, and culture, economy, and development studies.

Recent academic publications by Walter Scheidel include:

  • Roman wealth and wealth inequality in comparative perspective, 2020, Journal of Roman Archaeology
  • Resetting History's Dial? A Critique of David Graeber and David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, 2022, Cliodynamics The Journal of Quantitative History and Cultural Evolution
  • A comparison of income inequality in the Roman and Chinese Han empires, 2025, Nature Communications
  • Fitness and Power: The Contribution of Genetics to the History of Differential Reproduction, 2021, Evolutionary Psychology
  • Inequality Reduction Between Tragedy and Progress: The Great Leveler and Recent Scholarship, 2017-2024, 2024, SSRN Electronic Journal

Frequent co-authors include:

  • Peter Fibiger Bang
  • C. A. Bayly
  • Guido Alfani
  • Michele Bolla
  • Josiah Ober

Walter Scheidel has published in several academic venues with multiple contributions to:

  • Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
  • SSRN Electronic Journal
  • Journal of Roman Archaeology
  • The Classical Review
  • Cliodynamics The Journal of Quantitative History and Cultural Evolution

One notable book authored by Walter Scheidel is The Oxford World History of Empire, published in 2021 by Oxford University Press.

The scientist was recognized in 2015 as a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Best Publications

  • The Great Leveler

    Walter Scheidel

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

    Walter Scheidel

  • The Cambridge economic history of the Greco-Roman world

    Walter Scheidel;Ian Morris;Richard P. Saller

  • The Size of the Economy and the Distribution of Income in the Roman Empire

    Walter Scheidel;Steven J. Friesen

  • Debating Roman demography

    Walter Scheidel

  • Quantifying the Sources of Slaves in the Early Roman Empire

    Walter Scheidel

  • Death on the Nile: Disease and the Demography of Roman Egypt

    Walter Scheidel

  • Human Mobility in Roman Italy, II: The Slave Population

    Walter Scheidel

  • The Ancient Economy

    Walter Scheidel;Sitta von Reden

  • The Roman slave supply

    Walter Scheidel

  • Real Wages in Early Economies: Evidence for Living Standards from 1800 BCE to 1300 CE

    Walter Scheidel

  • Rome and China: Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires

    Walter Scheidel

  • The Dynamics of Ancient Empires: State Power from Assyria to Byzantium

    Ian Morris;Walter Scheidel

  • PROGRESS AND PROBLEMS IN ROMAN DEMOGRAPHY

    Walter Scheidel

  • Measuring Sex, Age and Death in the Roman Empire: Explorations in Ancient Demography

    Walter Scheidel

  • A model of demographic and economic change in Roman Egypt after the Antonine plague

    Walter Scheidel

  • Human Mobility in Roman Italy, II: The Slave Population*

    Unknown

  • The shape of the Roman world: modelling imperial connectivity

    Walter Scheidel

  • The Greek demographic expansion: models and comparisons

    Walter Scheidel

  • Population and Demography

    Walter Scheidel

  • Emperors, aristocrats, and the Grim Reaper: towards a demographic profile of the Roman elite.

    Walter Scheidel

  • The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Economy

    Walter Scheidel

  • The Size of the Economy and the Distribution of Income in the Roman Empire

    Steven J. Friesen;Walter Scheidel

Frequent Co-Authors

Kees Klein Goldewijk
Kees Klein Goldewijk Utrecht University
Marc F. P. Bierkens
Marc F. P. Bierkens Utrecht University
Ornella Semino
Ornella Semino University of Pavia
Peter A. Underhill
Peter A. Underhill Stanford University
Andrea Novelletto
Andrea Novelletto University of Rome Tor Vergata
Michael J. Mitchell
Michael J. Mitchell University of Pennsylvania

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