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Donald Trump in a gold hardhat poses with construction workers at the Trump Palace.

How the Capitalism of the 1980s Created Donald Trump’s Theory of the State

The proliferation of privately held companies during the Reagan years laid the foundations for Trump’s approach to government.
by Kim Phillips-Fein via The Nation on October 14, 2025
A group of women textile workers outside of their boarding house.
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Lowell’s Forgotten House Mothers

As vital to the success of industrial New England as the mill girls who toiled in the factories were the women who oversaw their lodging.
by Sarah Buchmeier via JSTOR Daily on April 2, 2025
Painting of George Washington among enslaved laborers working in a field.

What Florida Gets Wrong about George Washington and the Benefits He Received from Enslaving Black People

Florida’s new standards for teaching social studies include throwbacks to an interpretation of slavery as benign or inconsequential.
by Calvin Schermerhorn via The Conversation on August 17, 2023
Sculpture of Thinking Woman, by Louis Fleckenstein, 20th century.

The Birth of Brainstorming

Meet the self-help author who wanted to teach corporate America how to think.
by Samuel W. Franklin via Lapham’s Quarterly on May 17, 2023
Vince McMahon

Vince McMahon Controls Wrestling History in Order to Control All of Wrestling

How the WWE chairman warped pro wrestling all the way to WrestleMania 39.
by Abraham Josephine Riesman via Polygon on March 27, 2023
White students, including Jerry Jones, at Arkansas' North Little Rock High blocked the doors of the school Sept. 9, 1957, denying access to six Black students.

Jerry Jones Helped Transform the NFL, Except When It Comes To Race

Decades after the segregation battles of his youth, Jerry Jones has modernized the NFL’s revenue model but hasn’t hired a Black head coach.
by David Maraniss, Sally Jenkins via Washington Post on November 23, 2022
A stone pillar with a celluloid camera on top of it.

Digital Rocks

How Hollywood killed celluloid.
by Will Tavlin via n+1 on February 4, 2022
Collection of photographs ranging including shareholders' meeting protests, the city of Rochester, and Kodak founder George Eastman.

The Rise and Fall of an American Tech Giant

Kodak changed the way Americans saw themselves and their country. But it struggled to reinvent itself for the digital age.
by Kaitlyn Tiffany via The Atlantic on June 16, 2021
Comic with Donald Trump at the head of a White House conference room.

The End of the Businessman President

Donald Trump’s catastrophic tenure will be the nail in the coffin of the worst idea in politics: that the government can be run like a corporation.
by Kyle Edward Williams via The New Republic on December 9, 2020
Abandoned Howard Johnson's restaurant overgrown with vegetation.

Howard Johnson’s, Host of the Bygone Ways

For more than seven decades American roads were dotted with the familiar orange roof and blue cupola of the ubiquitous Howard Johnson’s restaurants and Motor Lodges.
via Sometimes Interesting on October 15, 2020

The Square Deal

Some people called it "Welfare Capitalism." George F. Johnson called it "The Square Deal."
by Nellie Gilles, Sarah Kate Kramer, Joe Richman via Radio Diaries on June 20, 2019
African American sharecropping children in a field with bags of cotton.
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The Perils of Big Data: How Crunching Numbers Can Lead to Moral Blunders

As history shows, efficiency without ethics can be catastrophic.
by Caitlin C. Rosenthal via Made By History on February 18, 2019

Make Ford Great Again

For now, yesterday is where the money is.
by Daniel Albert via n+1 on December 2, 2018

The Factory That Oreos Built

A new owner for the New York City landmark offers a tasty opportunity to recap a crème-filled history.
by Katherine Martinelli via Smithsonian on May 21, 2018

The Small Business Myth

Small businesses enjoy an iconic status in modern capitalism, but what do they really contribute to the economy?
by Benjamin C. Waterhouse via Aeon on November 8, 2017

Memo to Trump: This Is Why You're Losing

Why the president, who appears allergic to the logic of bureaucracy, keeps getting defeated by that humblest of technologies, the office memorandum.
by Yoni Appelbaum via The Atlantic on June 15, 2017
Cubicles

The Moral Life of Cubicles

On the utopian origins of Dilbert's workspace.
by David Franz via The New Atlantis on December 1, 2008
Charles Mitchell

The Lesson of 1929

Debt is the almost singular through line behind every major financial crisis.
by Andrew Ross Sorkin via The Atlantic on October 14, 2025
Poop emojis against a yellow backdrop.

Brown Stage Capitalism

Cory Doctorow’s ‘Enshittification’ describes how tech platforms (and everything else) went down the sewer. Hint: It rhymes with ‘deshmegulation.’
by Maureen Tkacik via The American Prospect on October 7, 2025
Photograph of Jean Muir

Before There Was Jimmy Kimmel, There Was Jean Muir

The "Red Scare" echo in the Kimmel suspension.
by Clay Risen via Politico Magazine on September 20, 2025
Buildings at the University of Minnesota.

The Book That Explained the University To Itself

Laurence Veysey’s 1965 tome remains the most incisive portrait of higher education.
by Scott Spillman via The Chronicle of Higher Education on August 25, 2025

The Crisis of the University Started Long Before Trump

The financial crisis of the University of Chicago sheds light on the forces that are "corroding ideals, and wasting money" throughout American higher education.
by Clifford Ando via Compact on August 14, 2025
A Caduceus with one snake ready to attack the other.

The Rapid Rise — and Precarious Future — of the Medical University

For decades, health care subsidized research and reputation. Now that model is cracking.
by John R. Thelin, Neal H. Hutchens via The Chronicle of Higher Education on August 6, 2025
Collage of images including spacecrafts, the moon and President Kennedy surround a jumping Elon Musk.

How NASA Engineered Its Own Decline

The agency once projected America’s loftiest ideals. Then it ceded its ambitions to Elon Musk.
by Franklin Foer via The Atlantic on July 28, 2025
New York skyline viewed from the top of the Woolworth building, 1913.

A Brief History of New York’s First Great Architectural Firm

On the eccentric, creative minds behind McKim, Meade and White.
by Henry Wiencek via Literary Hub on July 22, 2025
Advertisement highlighting recipes to make with Seabrook frozen vegetables.

Decline and Fall of the Spinach Kings: On the Wilting of a Family Dynasty

A history of wealth, enterprise, and family dysfunction.
by John Seabrook via Literary Hub on June 11, 2025
Jeff Bezos against a red D.C. background with the Washington Post newspaper on the bottom half

Is Jeff Bezos Selling Out the Washington Post?

The Amazon founder was once the newspaper’s savior; now journalists are fleeing as the paper that brought down Nixon struggles under Trump’s second term.
by Clare Malone via The New Yorker on May 12, 2025
Workmen clearing cobwebs from exterior of the White House, c. 1920.
partner

How to Succeed in Government Without Really Trying

The long history of promising an “efficient” federal government. 
by Camille Walsh via HNN on April 23, 2025
Magazine ad of raccoons playing computer games.

The Raccoons Who Made Computer Magazine Ads Great

In the 1980s and 1990s, PC Connection built its brand on a campaign starring folksy small-town critters. They’ll still charm your socks off.
by Harry McCracken via Technologizer on April 22, 2025
Collage of magazine text and outdoor images.

The Decline of Outside Magazine Is Also the End of a Vision of the Mountain West

After its purchase by a tech entrepreneur, the publication is now a shadow of itself.
by Rachel Monroe via The New Yorker on April 18, 2025
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