This scarce text contains a collection of writing by the seminal sociologist, Thorstein Bunde Veblen. Veblen was most famous for combining Darwinian evolutionary ideas with his avant-garde institutionalist approach to contemporary economic analysis, culminating in his masterpiece: The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899). In The Theory of the Leisure Class, Veblen proposes that there is a social dichotomy between people who progress through life by way of exploitation and those who progress by way of industry - ideas seminal to modern socio-economic theory today. Thorstein Bunde Veblen was an American economist and sociologist, as well as leader of the institutional economics movement. Originally published in 1936, we are proud to republish this rare book with a new introductory biography of the author.