V sbornik voshli tri stat"i, ob"edinennye obshchey temoy, kotoruyu mozhno nazvat" Etnogenez i izobretatel"nost" chelovechestva. Pervaya stat"ya Krivye Gumileva i krivye etnicheskikh dostizheniy posvyashchena sopostavleniyu izobretatel"nosti etnosa i ego zhiznennogo tsikla. Na primerakh ellinskogo, rimskogo, vizantiyskogo, slavyanskogo, arabskogo etnosov, ikh nauchno-tekhnicheskikh dostizheniy podtverzhdeny neskol"ko gipotez, v tom chisle, o tom, chto v zhizni kazhdogo etnosa est" otrezok dlinoy okolo 200 let, na kotorom rastsvetayut nauka, tekhnika i remesla. Vtoraya stat"ya Chelovechestvo stanovitsya vsye izobretatel"nee yavlyaetsya, s odnoy storony, otklikom na rabotu fizika Kh"yubnera, kotoryy utverzhdal, chto izobretatel"nost" chelovechestva v tselom padaet, s drugoy storony, v stat"e privoditsya analiz statisticheskikh dannykh ob izobretatel"nosti v neskol"kikh otdel"nykh stranakh. V stat"e pokazano, chto net nadezhnykh svidetel"stv padeniya izobretatel"nost" chelovechestva v tselom, a izobretatel"nost" nekotorykh etnosov mozhno uvyazat" s teoriy Gumileva. Tret"ya stat"ya Mankind becomes more inventive yavlyaetsya ispravlennym i dopolnennym perevodom na angliyskiy yazyk vtoroy stat"i.