Walter Scheidel

Walter Scheidel's picture
Dickason Professor in the Humanities; Professor of Classics and History
Stanford University
Scheidel's research focuses on ancient social and economic history, with particular emphasis on historical demography, labor, and state formation. More generally, he is interested in comparative and transdisciplinary approaches to the study of the premodern world, and is trying to build bridges between the humanities, the social sciences, and the life sciences. The most frequently cited active-duty Roman historian in the Western Hemisphere adjusted for age, Scheidel is the author or (co-)editor of 15 books, has published over 200 articles, chapters, and reviews, and has lectured in 23 countries. His most recent books are State Power in Ancient China and Rome(2015, ed.), Fiscal Regimes and the Political Economy of Premodern States (2015, co-edited with Andrew Monson), The Oxford Handbook of the State in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean (2013, co-edited with Peter Bang), The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Economy (2012, ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Roman Studies (2010, co-edited with Alessandro Barchiesi), Rome and China: Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires (2009, ed.), The Dynamics of Ancient Empires (2009, co-edited with Ian Morris), and The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World (2007, co-edited with Ian Morris and Richard Saller).