Betting on Ideas : Wars, Invention, Inflation

Hardback. (From the library of George Rude, author and historian, signed by him to inside cover). This is a book about why people bet on ideas - why, in particular, they gamble on wars or change their minds and gamble on peace. The author argues that new ideas and great readiness to take risks arise when people have been outdone by their fellows. People who fall behind, whether on a local, national, or international scale, are willing to deviate from the beaten path and gamble with their money, commit crimes, or bet on new ideas in art, business, science, and politics, hoping either to make themselves richer or others poorer. To paraphrase Mandeville: Fear, Envy, and Vanity seem to be the Ministers of Industry. 247 pp. ( We carry a wide selection of titles in The Arts, Theology, History, Politics, Social and Physical Sciences. academic and scholarly books and Modern First Editions etc.).