Some Thoughts on the 1619 Project I’m not sure how much of an impact the 1619 Project will have on the public, but it has certainly gotten a lot of academic historians...

The Back of Ed Baptist's Envelope I have finally had a chance to read some more of Edward Baptist’s The Half Has Never Been Told . A central claim of the book is that ...

Some Recent Economic History of Slavery and Its Political and Economic Legacy The other day on twitter, Seth Rockman and I were discussing current work on slavery by economic historians. He thought that there was “mo...

The Newer History of Capitalism Robert Wright has a blog post about Why the History of Capitalism Subfield Got Slavery (and Almost Everything Else) so Terribly Wrong His...

Blog Post From Nebraska We are visiting my family in Kearney, Nebraska. When we are here in the summer we go for walks in the nearby cemetery. There is a lot of...

Bankrupt in America Bankrupt in America: A History of Debtors, Their Creditors and the Law in the Twentieth Century will be published by The University of ...

Was Slavery Central to American Economic Development? Antebellum Economic Growth Last week on Twitter Matt Yglesias raised a question about changes in how historians interpreted slavery...

Economics needs better critics: Jared Bernstein edition A couple of weeks ago Vox.com published and essay by Jared Bernstein titled “What economists have gotten wrong for decades : Four economic...

That's Just Econ 101 The other day my wife and I were talking about how people like to use phrases like “that’s just Econ 101”. Unfortunately, statements that...