Carlo M. Cipolla
Allegro ma non troppo

THE REVIEW

I don't know where to begin, maybe I shouldn't start at all. But I must write something about a book that is undoubtedly too brilliant.

Let's try this: the book (booklet to be precise, little book, a tiny book, not even 80 pages written in large print, a little booklet) is divided in two, there's an essay on the importance of pepper in medieval history, pepper as the engine of history rather than the penis as Freud babbled or God as Aristotle chatted, and then there's the declaration and argumentation of the Fundamental Laws of Human Stupidity.

I can't find an adjective other than BRILLIANT to describe this little book. I realize that it is an overused word, devalued and somewhat emptied of meaning, but it might be that I have a limited vocabulary, I can't find any others and I'll stick with BRILLIANT, written large.

Cipolla's argument is so logical that I am now firmly convinced that without pepper we would still be in the Early Middle Ages; regarding the laws of Stupidity, humor be damned, that is pure distilled truth, period. The problem is that we all feel we belong to the band of the intelligent, and we don't realize instead that in certain situations we behave (we have behaved... we do behave) stupidly. End of the sermon, I promise, but find an hour and a half of your time to be cheerful. But never too much.