 The central theme of Prof Piketty's work is that wealth inequalities are heading back up to levels last seen before the World War I.The investigation undercuts this claim, indicating there is little evidence in Prof Piketty's original sources to bear out the thesis that an increasing share of total wealth is held by the richest few.Piketty wrote a response defending his findings and arguing that subsequent studies (he links to Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman's March 2014 presentation, "The Distribution of US Wealth, Capital Income and Returns since 1913") confirm his conclusions about increasing wealth inequality and actually show a greater increase in inequality for the United States than he does in his book.