Carlo M. Cipolla (1922 - 2000) was an Italian economic historian, Fulbright Fellow and professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Cipolla was elected as a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy in 1989 and awarded the International Balzan Prize for Economic History in 1995. He also held honorary degrees in Italy and Switzerland.His classic treatise The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity was first published in 1988 and has sold more than half a million copies worldwide in over ten languages.