Topic: History

They Are Rewriting the History of Coronavirus in Real Time

– March 11, 2020

The daily threats and warnings have spooked markets far more than the sober analysis from genuine medical professionals. Markets, non-interventionist policies, and budget cuts have between little and nothing to do with the fear now spreading.

History

The Heroic Contribution of Michael Milken

– March 10, 2020

There are no companies, no jobs, and there is no progress without investment, and Milken would vastly improve the world around him through skillful development of the companies not recognized by traditional banks and investment banks, but that would be greatly enhanced through bespoke finance.

History

Entrepreneur Couney Brought Incubators to the Preemies

– March 6, 2020

One of Couney’s early stations was at the 1901 Buffalo World’s Fair. Also on display was an early X-ray machine whose inventor would soon win the first physics Nobel Prize.

History

What the 1619 Project’s Critics Get Wrong about Lincoln

– March 6, 2020

Since its publication last August, the New York Times’ 1619 Project has come under a barrage of withering critiques. Historians took it to task for exaggerating the role of slavery as a motivating factor behind the Revolutionary War, while economists quickly dissected its empirically suspect…

History

Is Bernie Right about Education in Cuba?

– March 2, 2020

What explains the rising literacy rates and rising levels of educational achievements is also what explains the regime’s ability to continually repress Cuban people.

History

Enough of this Idea of Presidential Greatness

– February 23, 2020

What constitutes a great president? Every presidential election, pundits and commentators opine on the characteristics of presidents that made them great. Starting in 1948, at the impulse of Arthur Schlesinger Sr. of Harvard University, historians have …

History

Happy 90th Birthday, Professor Israel Kirzner!

– February 18, 2020

Even in an era when modern medicine and technologies are adding to people’s lifetimes, along with the gains in general human economic betterment, it still stands as a notable event when someone marks their 90th birthday. On February 13th, renowned “Aus …

History

The Case for Retracting Matthew Desmond’s 1619 Project Essay

– February 11, 2020

Since the outset of the 1619 Project controversy, I have consistently argued that the overwhelming majority of the project’s problems derive from a single featured essay: Matthew Desmond’s piece on capitalism and slavery. This essay advances an explici …

History

How America Became Rich, According to a Historian in 1802

– January 30, 2020

For the last quarter century, I have tried to explain the causes of economic growth to my fellow historians. A few have caught on but not the ones whose publications garner the most attention. New Historians of Capitalism/Slavery are the worst offender …

History

FDR and Stalin Planned the Future of the World

– January 27, 2020

For the establishment of the UN, Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave Joseph Stalin virtually everything the tyrant wanted.

History

The Overuse of the “Roaring Twenties”

– January 21, 2020

The problem is that this image is a fiction. In no way does the evidence from the field of economic history support it. Maybe it is politically useful to use it, but it is not historically nor economically accurate.

History

John Stuart Mill on Slavery and the American Civil War

– January 20, 2020

In the heated and sometimes angry exchanges over the history of slavery and the place of liberalism in the great contest between freedom and bondage in the 19th century, we should appreciate how determined, dedicated, and publicly demanding were many of those classical liberal thinkers.