Walter Scheidel is Dickason Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Classics and History at Stanford University. He has also held positions at the Universities of Vienna, Cambridge and Chicago as well as visiting appointments in Paris, Innsbruck, New York, Abu Dhabi, Copenhagen and Zurich.
Professor Scheidel's research ranges from ancient social and economic history and premodern historical demography to the comparative and transdisciplinary world history of inequality, labor, state formation and human welfare. He has written six books and edited or co-edited sixteen others. His most recent book, What Is Ancient History? (Princeton 2025), is a manifesto calling for the globalization of ancient studies.
