The book is packed with fascinating detail and vast quantities of skilfully assembled data; it is written (and translated, by Arthur Goldhammer) in an accessible, conversational tone. But Piketty’s vital contribution is somewhat obscured by the book’s title. He is not in the business of uncovering the ideological dynamics that make the interests of the powerful appear to coincide with everyone’s general interest—what Boutmy called ‘political hegemony’—or in explaining the way they have historically operated. Instead, he gives us a systematic examination of inequality across time and place, and of the ideas the powerful have used to justify it.

My conclusion: the 1,200-page tome might become even more politically influential than the French economist’s 2013 overview of inequality, Capital in the Twenty-First Century.

If inequality has become the subject of intense public attention, a good deal of the credit goes to the French economist Thomas Piketty.

Piketty’s book doesn’t do a good job of explaining how an inevitable collapse in property prices will affect the tax base and investment.

The problem is that the length of Capital and Ideology seems, at least to me, to reflect in part a lack of focus.

Unlike Capital, the new book lands on the world’s doorstep in the midst of an unfolding economic crisis, when the shutdown required to prevent the spread of the coronavirus is sending the world into a spiraling recession, with the wealthy fleeing to secluded second homes, while millions are thrown out of work or forced to do dangerous jobs. To come out the other side better off, the world will need new ideas.

From the extraordinary wealth of its empirical material to the breadth of its cultural scope, and from the rare alliance of statistical precision and literary references to the level of its intellectual and political ambition, there is much to commend in this remarkable book.

A weighty tome in many respects, not least physically, with the book extending to more than 1,000 pages of history and dense political and economic argument.

Because Piketty believes, first of all, that inequality is manufactured, disruptive, and requiring justification, he never satisfyingly rationalizes egalitarianism. The nearest he gets is a very contestable demonstration that 'what made economic development and human progress possible was the struggle for equality,' with an emphasis on progressive taxation, 'and education'—hardly the working out of a world view.

At his best, Piketty draws the potential dry discussion of economic systems into the complex interplay of human systems of politics, ideology, and history, and into the manifold ways these systems have taken shape throughout time and place. Perhaps most invigorating of all is the degree of faith Piketty places in human imagination and the ability to right wrongs and make active decisions to shape our collective future.

At just over 1,100 pages, Piketty’s new book surpasses Capital in the Twenty-First Century in size and scope by a considerable extent; it is, in many ways, a far more ambitious work in both its range and its politics.

... an ambitious attempt to analyze inequality and offer ways to reduce it.

... wide-ranging.

... a significant work.