A seemingly ordinary village participates in a yearly lottery to determine a sacrificial victim.

Lotteries in Colonial America examines the role lotteries played in the economic life of the colonies, as an alternative form of raising revenue for public and private projects that was utilized from the founding of Jamestown to the financing of the American Revolution.

This work is organized around an epistemological puzzle: in many cases, we seem consistently inclined to deny that we know a certain class of propositions while crediting ourselves with knowledge of propositions that imply them. The text explores questions on the nature and importance of knowledge.

With its huge jackpots and heartwarming rags-to-riches stories, the lottery has become the hope and dream of millions of Americans--and the fastest-growing source of state revenue. Despite its popularity, however, there remains much controversy over whether this is an appropriate business for state government and, if so, how this business should be conducted.

Largely, this is because lottery-based decisions are not based upon reasons.

Chronicles the first decades of an informal lottery called the jogo do bicho, or animal game, which originated in Rio de Janeiro in 1892, and remains popular in Brazil today.