Guido Alfani

How the rich and the super-rich throughout Western history accumulated their wealth, behaved (or misbehaved), and helped (or didn't help) their communities in times of crisis. The rich have always fascinated, sometimes in problematic ways. Medieval thinkers feared that the super-rich would act 'as gods among men'; much more recently, Thomas Piketty made wealth central to discussions of inequality. In...

How the rich and the super-rich throughout Western history accumulated their wealth, behaved (or misbehaved) and helped (or didn't help) their communities in times of crisis. The rich have always fascinated, sometimes in problematic ways. Medieval thinkers feared that the super-rich would act as gods among men; much more recently Thomas Piketty made wealth central to discussions of inequality. In...