On the occasion of the release of Lucas Chancel’s new book, Energy and Inequalities: A Political History, the World Inequality Lab invites you to a discussion with the author as part of the Equality Debates, on Thursday, October 9, 2025, at 6:00 pm.

Program

  • 6:00–6:30 pm: Presentation by Lucas Chancel
  • 6:30–7:00 pm: Q&A with the audience
  • 7:00 pm: Book sale and signing

Summary
 For millennia, the use of energy has shaped human societies, structuring their hierarchies and power relations. Its mastery has been both a vehicle of emancipation and a tool of domination. Ownership of energy resources and infrastructure has been the ground of social, political, and geostrategic struggles. Depending on who controls energy, radically different societal choices can emerge.

By bringing together findings from economic history, archaeology, and climate science, Lucas Chancel shows how, over the long term, the technical and political frameworks that determine energy use intertwine with the distribution of wealth between individuals, social groups, and nations.

This book advocates for an ecological transition grounded in the collective reappropriation of energy. Drawing on wealth redistribution experiences from the past century, it outlines an alternative to ecological disaster and extreme inequalities through the development of new forms of public and participatory ownership in the 21st century.

Lucas Chancel is a professor at Sciences Po Paris, within the Center for Research on Social Inequalities, and co-director of the World Inequality Lab at the Paris School of Economics.

Practical information

📅 Thursday, October 9, 6:00–7:00 pm

📍 Daniel Cohen Auditorium, Paris School of Economics, 48 Boulevard Jourdan, Paris 14

🎙️The event will be held in French and in person

🖊️To register, click here.

 

This event is part of the Equality Debates, a series of discussions organized by the World Inequality Lab around a recently published book or social science research, offering authors and audiences the chance to exchange ideas. To receive invitations, click here.

Contact
Alice Fauvel, Communications Manager, World Inequality Lab: alice.fauvel[at]psemail.eu