ABD’li ünlü yazar Mark Twain, başta edebiyat alanında olmak üzere yazdığı eserler ve yaşam serüveni ile tanınmaktadır. Uluslararası Twain Cemiyeti ise Cyril Clemens bir grup aydın tarafından 1930 yılında kurulmuştur. Cemiyetin kuruluş amacı faaliyetleri Twain’in eserlerinin güncelliğini sağlamak, yarışmaları düzenlemek, biyografik çalışmaları diğer eserleri dergide yayınlamak vb. şeklindedir. C...

Tuesday, June 29, 2004. This paper was written for the Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation conference on economic institutions and behavioral economics. This is a very rough working draft for the conference. The Mark Twain apology applies, we wish we had more time to write less. Comments are genuinely appreciated, especially on what to cut, and on important omissions (self-serving ones are expected). Idea...

Popular tradition may be used to defend what seems irrational, and you can also say that sometimes it is not irrational, for it is likely that unlikely things should happen. — Aristotle, Poetics (c.335 BCE) But, on the other hand, Uncle Abner said that the person that had took a bull by the tail once had learnt sixty or seventy times as much as a person that hadn’t, and said a person that start...

“Mohammedans are Mohammedans because they are born and reared among that sect, not because they have thought it out and can furnish sound reasons for being Mohammedans; we know why Catholics are Catholics; why Presbyterians are Presbyterians; why Baptists are Baptists; why Mormons are Mormons; why thieves are thieves; why monarchists are monarchists; why Republicans are Republicans and Democrat...

Mark Twain escreveu o livro A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889) como uma forma de refletir sobre as mudanças que ocorriam nos Estados Unidos da assim chamada “Era Dourada”. O conta a história Hank Morgan, um engenheiro foi parar na Inglaterra do século VI, quando Rei Arthur liderava os Cavaleiros Távola Redonda, em Camelot. tenta industrializar doze séculos antes, usando seus con...

In 1889, Mark Twain described a rather resourceful character in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by writing that ‘‘She was wise, subtle, and knew more than one way to skin a cat’’; that is, she had in her toolbox more than one way to get what she wanted. The exact origins of the phrase are unclear, but most of us interpret this expression as meaning that there are certain tasks that ...