This is from a book review of a biography of Joseph Schumpeter, the economist best known for describing capitalism's "creative destruction."
While still in his 20s [c. 1910] he won an appointment to a chair in Czernowitz, an eastern outpost of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where he found that his students were denied proper access to the library. Challenged to a duel by the school's librarian, he fought to help his students and, not least, to demonstrate his honor--satisfaktionsfähig--as an Austrian gentleman. By virtue of his swordsmanship, Schumpeter drew first blood, and the library's collection was made fully available to his students.
Had to share that.
"Perishable Goods"
by Robin Blackburn
The Nation
September 24, 2007
(We have access to some articles in the Nation but not others, and not this one, not yet.)
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1 comment:
If you like the idea of dueling librarians, I suggest Souls in the Great Machine by Sean Mcmullen. It's only fiction, but still. "Was an insult intended? Were there grounds for a duel? The Highliber was known to be a deadly shot with a flintlock, and had killed several of her own staff in duels over her modernizations in the huge library."
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