A Brief History of Equality
by Thomas Piketty
out April 19, 2022
ISBN: 9780674273559
★★★★★

"Economic questions are too important to be left to others. Citizens' reappropriation of this knowledge is an essential state in the battle for equality. If this book has given readers new weapons for this battle, my goal will have been fully realized" (p. 244).

Piketty has written excellent books on economics that are unfortunately very huge, very technical, and pretty inaccessible for the everyday person. A Brief History of Equality was his attempt at condensing some of his research into a smaller and easier-to-read format to reach a larger audience.

I'm not sure if this book will have much wider appeal, as it is still very dense and requires some foundational knowledge of general political economy that isn't especially well-known in the US. However, as someone with an interest and academic background in the subject matter who has read his previous books, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and looked forward to when I could carve out time during the day to sit on the couch and dive in.

Very highly recommended, with the caveat that it is the sort of book that you should approach only when you're in the mood for deep reading.

(I'm now off to read a fun fantasy novel.)