About the Author

Carlo M. Cipolla is professor of economic history at the University of California, Berkeley. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, he is also Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and corresponding .fellow of the Accademia dei Lincei. His other books include Between Two Cultures: An Introduction to Economic History; Clocks and Culture, 1300–1700; and Faith, Reason, and the Plague in Seventeenth-Century Tuscany, all published by Norton.