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Capital in the Twenty–First Century Hardcover – Illustrated, 18 Mar. 2014

4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 4,841 ratings

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Capital in the Twenty-First Century is arguably the most important popular economics book in recent memory. It will take its place among other classics in the field that have survived changing theoretical and political fashions, such as its namesake by Karl Marx (Das Kapital, 1867) or other ambitiously titled books such as John Maynard Keynes's The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936). Anyone who wants to engage in an informed discussion about the economic landscape will have to read Piketty.--Kate Bahn "Women's Review of Books" (1/1/2015 12:00:00 AM)

A big book in every sense of the word, using empirical evidence from 30 countries to describe how capitalism has evolved over the past 300 years and is now reverting to what Piketty calls the Downton Abbey world of a century ago...It is rare for economics books to fly off the shelves. Once in every generation, usually when the world has started to recover after a serious recession, there is a search for answers. Will Hutton's
The State We're In was the must-buy book two decades ago just as Piketty's is today.-- "The Guardian" (5/2/2014 12:00:00 AM)

A landmark book...which brings a ton of data to bear in reaching the commonsensical conclusion that inequality has to do with more than just blind market forces at work.--George Packer "New Yorker" (3/25/2014 12:00:00 AM)

After receiving widespread attention in his native France, Thomas Piketty's
Capital in the Twenty-First Century has received even greater attention on this side of the Atlantic, and deservedly so. It offers a stark and depressing picture for those who believe that some combination of democratic politics and economic growth can protect us from rampant inequality.--Kenneth Scheve and David Stasavage "Washington Post" (4/7/2014 12:00:00 AM)

Anyone remotely interested in economics needs to read Thomas Piketty's
Capital in the Twenty-First Century.--Matthew Yglesias "Slate" (2/10/2014 12:00:00 AM)

Groundbreaking...The usefulness of economics is determined by the quality of data at our disposal. Piketty's new volume offers a fresh perspective and a wealth of newly compiled data that will go a long way in helping us understand how capitalism actually works.--Christopher Matthews "Fortune" (2/26/2014 12:00:00 AM)

It's going to be remembered as the economic tome of our era. Basically, Piketty has finally put to death, with data, the fallacies of trickle down economics...We can only hope that the politicians crafting today's economic programs will take this book to heart.--Rana Foroohar "Time" (4/23/2014 12:00:00 AM)

Magisterial...Piketty provides a sweeping, data-driven narrative about inequality trends in the United States and other Western economies over the past century or more, identifies a worrisome increase in income and wealth concentration in a small percentage of the population since 1980, and warns that this trend won't likely correct itself.--Chad Stone "U.S. News & World Report" (4/18/2014 12:00:00 AM)

Marx believed that free markets produce inequality, social division and violence. Piketty appears to side with Marx, but this is deceptive. When Piketty talks about 'capital, ' he means the kind of investments held by today's leisured
rentier class whose money is tied up in property and pensions. Piketty argues that a free market overloaded with this kind of capital may or may not lead to anger and alienation, but it will certainly act like lumpy blockages in the smooth running of the economy. Piketty only wants the economy to work better.--Nicholas Blincoe "The Telegraph" (11/22/2014 12:00:00 AM)

Not since John Rawls's
A Theory of Justice in 1971 has a work of political theory been as rapturously received on the left as Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century...In this supposedly superficial and anti-intellectual age, his 690-page treatise on inequality, rich in empirical research, has resonated because it speaks to one of the central anxieties of our time: that society is becoming ever more fragmented as the very rich pull away from the rest.-- "New Statesman" (5/12/2014 12:00:00 AM)

Piketty draws on a vast store of historical data to argue that the broad dissemination of wealth that occurred during the decades following World War I was not, as economists then mistakenly believed, a natural state of capitalist equilibrium, but rather a halcyon interval between Belle Époque inequality and the rising inequality of our own era...[His] most provocative argument is that the discrepancy between the high returns to capital and much more modest overall economic growth--briefly annulled during the mid-century--ensures that the gulf between the rich (who profit from capital investments) and the middle class (who depend chiefly on income from labor) will only continue to grow.--James Traub "Foreign Policy" (4/11/2014 12:00:00 AM)

Rarely does a book come along...that completely alters the paradigm through which we frame our worldview. Thomas Piketty's magisterial study of the structure of capitalism since the 18th century,
Capital in the Twenty-First Century, is such a book...This book is more than a must read. It is a manual for action that provides a fresh framework for the new politics of the 21st century.--Nathan Gardels "The WorldPost" (3/24/2014 12:00:00 AM)

Thomas Piketty's
Capital in the Twenty-First Century laid bare the deep structural forces that have made our brave new neoliberal economic order so dangerously topheavy and unstable.--Chris Lehmann "In These Times" (6/27/2017 12:00:00 AM)

About the Author

Thomas Piketty is Professor at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) and the Paris School of Economics and Codirector of the World Inequality Lab.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harvard University Press; Illustrated edition (18 Mar. 2014)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 704 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 067443000X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0674430006
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 16.76 x 4.72 x 24.36 cm
  • Customer reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 4,841 ratings

About the author

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Thomas Piketty
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Thomas Piketty (French: [tɔˈma pikɛˈti]; born on 7 May 1971) is a French economist who works on wealth and income inequality. He is a professor (directeur d'études) at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS), professor at the Paris School of Economics and Centennial professor at the London School of Economics new International Inequalities Institute.

He is the author of the best-selling book Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2013), which emphasises the themes of his work on wealth concentrations and distribution over the past 250 years. The book argues that the rate of capital return in developed countries is persistently greater than the rate of economic growth, and that this will cause wealth inequality to increase in the future. He considers that to be a problem, and to address it, he proposes redistribution through a progressive global tax on wealth.

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Gobierno de Chile [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
4,841 global ratings
Content good, vessel not so
4 Stars
Content good, vessel not so
I bought his book for a research paper I was doing, I saw the price and was happy to purchase.However, the book arrived in a box which was way too big, so more recycling for my local recycling plant. Secondly the book looked like it had seen better days, I had ordered a new copy, but the outside of the book looked like it was badly printed whilst the spindle looked dirty like it had been left somewhere to gather dust. I appreciate the efforts of Amazon staff, it is the managers and others who need to review where they keep books going forward.The content of the book is excellent and worth the read even if you are not researching a paper, it is easy to absorb and understand.
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Top reviews from United Kingdom

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 May 2014
61 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 9 July 2014
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Top reviews from other countries

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Marcelo Otávio Lima Barati
5.0 out of 5 stars Reflexões atuais e interesantes.
Reviewed in Brazil on 5 September 2020
Franco Leal
5.0 out of 5 stars Good
Reviewed in Mexico on 3 November 2021
2 people found this helpful
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Sandy
5.0 out of 5 stars Good read, but arduous. Pick chapters that interest you.
Reviewed in India on 3 May 2019
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Sandy
5.0 out of 5 stars Good read, but arduous. Pick chapters that interest you.
Reviewed in India on 3 May 2019
I found this book quite fascinating. The author is able to weave through history of income inequality and juxtapose it with current data gathered from US, UK, France, China and India. Quite a good read.

However, the first 100, pages may be a bain to start. Keep at it and you will find the journey rewarding in the end.

Let me iterate this is not a casual reading book ... it is a serious study of the world's inequality and being quite voluminous requires significant ability to concentrate and maintain focus ...You also would need to have some understanding of basic economics to appreciate the work. Piketty, uses a lots of technical terms and rightly so perhaps, which refer to economics principles of demand and supply, r & g (rate of growth of capital vs growth of economy) at al, and lots of tables and charts. This is in that sense not a beginner's book. It's a book by an economist for economist. So don't be ashamed to skip sections of the book which are above you pay grade. There are a lot of interesting case studies, which buttress the central theme "Inequality and how money makes more money".

His proposal for Global Tax on Capital (as he himself puts it) is quite "utopian" in its construct. However it's a start, because the alternative of high tariffs and capital control is an unsatisfactory substitute.

My only advice is to not read the book from cover to cover and pick chapters which interest you. The second half of the book is really interesting. There are some good case studies, like the Havard University's $30 billion endowment and how they manage it, which are quite fascinating to read.

So don't miss those fascinating parts. To conclude I would say, Piketty has done a great job of harnessing data over several decades, curated, analysed and build a compelling case of " rising capital inequality", however, the proposed solution is quite ambitious and needs to be further fleshed out in context of global politics. Enjoy!
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61 people found this helpful
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Cliente Amazon
5.0 out of 5 stars A book that should be truly suggested at schools and courses in economics and sociology
Reviewed in Italy on 15 July 2017
One person found this helpful
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Dr Zhu Weiguang
4.0 out of 5 stars A very good book on economics.
Reviewed in Singapore on 24 March 2021