Marco H.D. van Leeuwen is a professor of social science history at the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands. He specializes in the study of global social inequality from 1500 to the present. Professor van Leeuwen is an honorary research fellow at the International Institute of Social History. He has written widely on social inequality and mobility as well as on philanthropy, charity, mutual aid, private and social insurance, and the history of risks. His work has been published in such journals as the American Journal of Sociology, the American Sociological Review, the Journal of Interdisciplinary History, The Economic History Review, the Journal of Social History, Continuity and Change, and the European Sociological Review.