This open-minded, multidisciplinary approach challenges existing world views on the endogenous and exogenous forces that drive markets and economies.Nine narrative chapters and a conclusion provide an accessible history of key premises and assumptions in the mental models proposed by several major economists since the 1776 publication of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations and show how—and why—those models and their underlying assumptions have changed over ...

Throughout the long centuries of human history is the want, and the need, to share information, to exchange ideas and for that knowledge and experience, for curiosity and learning, to be the basis of a civil society.In literature the ambition is much narrower. In order to be known, to be popular, you had to be published. And for that people had to know you existed and your ideas worth reading. Obviously for most of humanity’s time people couldn’t read and texts couldn’t be publishe...

An author’s talents may seem obvious and indisputable as they move words and ideas into gathered phrases and stories.But where do these ideas and stories come from? A lonely thought that suddenly gathers form? An inspiration from a Muse? A suggestion from an everyday event?Perhaps in the case of their darker, more malevolent stories, other forces are at work. They help to nourish single words into sentences and paragraphs that ease themselves from the shadows and are sudden...

Science is based on fact. Of course, it might take a huge leap of faith or imagination to even think that something can be proven or invented with experiments in search of the presumed end result.In this volume our trusted band of authors write fervently in pursuit of something that just needs proving with a small, very simple, experiment or two. What could possibly go wrong?1 - Stories About Experiments Gone Wrong - An Introduction2 - Rappaccini's Daughter - Part 1...

Throughout the long centuries of human history is the want, and the need, to share information, to exchange ideas and for that knowledge and experience, for curiosity and learning, to be the basis of a civil society.In literature the ambition is much narrower. In order to be known, to be popular, you had to be published. And for that people had to know you existed and your ideas worth reading. Obviously for most of humanity’s time people couldn’t read and texts couldn’t be publishe...

Throughout the long centuries of human history is the want, and the need, to share information, to exchange ideas and for that knowledge and experience, for curiosity and learning, to be the basis of a civil society.In literature the ambition is much narrower. In order to be known, to be popular, you had to be published. And for that people had to know you existed and your ideas worth reading. Obviously for most of humanity’s time people couldn’t read and texts couldn’t be publishe...

Life is to be lived. Experiences gained, pleasures sampled. But, troublingly, when you are a classic author your thoughts sometimes lean towards darker thoughts. Within the space of a few paragraphs these literary masters shape a new world; more difficult experiences, darker pleasures. Life becomes uneasy, a queasy feeling, perhaps a repulsion here, a disgust there and very soon what was cosy, warm and comfortable becomes cold, painful, even horrific.The talents of their pens now f...