Dr. Walter Scheidel teaches in the Department of Classics at Stanford University (USA). Scheidel’s research focuses on ancient social and economic history, with particular emphasis on historical demography, slavery, and agrarian history.

More generally, he is interested in comparative and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of the ancient world, and is trying to build bridges between the humanities and the life sciences.

His most recent books include Death on the Nile: Disease and the Demography of Roman Egypt (Brill 2001) and, as editor, Debating Roman Demography (Brill 2001). He is currently preparing a general survey of ancient demography for Cambridge University Press, and is co-editing The Dynamics of Ancient Empires with Ian Morris, and The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World with Morris and Richard Saller. He is also planning a handbook on the ancient state for Oxford University Press, and is co-organizing an international research initiative for the comparative study of ancient Mediterranean and Chinese empires. [from the Stanford University Website]