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Croton aqueduct.

Testing the Waters in Gotham

The three forms of water distribution form a fluid archive of community formation, civic pride, and the many ways New Yorkers can choose the water they drink.
San Diego U.S. Customs office.

San Diego’s South Bay Annexation Of 1957

Water insecurity, territorial expansion, and the making of a US-Mexico border city.
USS San Jacinto on ocean
partner

The U.S. Only Pretends to Want 'Freedom of the Seas'

Too often, U.S. support for open navigation has devolved into military conflict.
President Bill Clinton signing NAFTA

The Long Shadow of NAFTA

Neither side of the border has seen the benefits it was promised.
WPA poster for the City of New York Department of Docks, showing smokestack of ship and cargo being loaded.
Exhibit

International Trade

Histories of how money and commodities have flowed across borders, from the slave-based economies of maritime empires to contemporary globalization.

The Yuchi people dressed for hunting

What a Historical Analysis of Gunpowder Can Teach Us About Gun Culture in the United States

An understanding of the history of gunpowder might be able to tell us how and why guns have become so widely accessible in the present-day United States.
Cannabis being harvested by farmers, with only their hands visible.

Withering Green Rush

California cannabis breeding is at a crossroads.

Africa, the Center of History

A new book works to counteract the “symphony of erasure” that has obscured and denied Africa’s contributions to the contemporary world.
Police and bystanders at night.

Do Cartels Exist?

A revisionist view of the drug wars.
Nicholas Said.

The Epic Life of Nicholas Said, from Africa to Russia to the Civil War

Dean Calbreath’s biography, “The Sergeant,” relates the improbable adventures of a brilliant 19th-century Black man.
Painting of a city along a river, with a long dock and commerical ships

James Buchanan's 1832 Mission to the Tsar

The plight of Poland and the limits of America's revolutionary legacy in Jacksonian foreign policy.
A Foxconn factory in San Jeronimo, Chihuahua state, Mexico, as seen from Santa Teresa, N.M.
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History Shows Moving Manufacturing to North America Isn’t a Cure-all

The initial promise of Mexican factories in the 1960s gave way to impoverished communities and capital flight in search of higher profits.
University of Arizona’s “Palm Drive,” 1914.

Dictating the Desert

Plants and settlers take root in a new mythology of Arizona.
Bill Clinton presenting the V-chip, 1996.

Cold Controls

“National security” and the history of US export controls.
Painting depicting the U.S. Army and American Indians signing the Treaty of Greenville, 1785.

How the (First) West Was Won: Federalist Treaties that Reshaped the Frontier

Treaties with Britain, the Confederated tribes, and Spain revealed that America was still dependent on the greater geopolitics of the Atlantic World.
Black-and-white illustration of men using several of Thomas Edison's inventions

A Dose of Rational Optimism

"Slouching Towards Utopia" is a rise-and-fall epic—but it is better at depicting the rise than explaining the fall.
Man carrying bundle of sugarcane over his head walking on plank in Guyana sugarcane fields

The Capitalist Transformations of the Countryside

Centuries of capitalism saw the global countryside ruthlessly converted into cheap commodities. But at what cost?
A Starbucks pumpkin spice latte.

The Secret History of Pumpkin Pie Spice

Why do we eat pumpkin pie spice in the fall?
Ronald Reagan pointing at a graph explaining his tax policy.
partner

Inflation Opened the Door to American Neoliberalism

An excerpt from "The Hidden History of Neoliberalism."
Los Angeles at dusk.

The Politics of Concrete

Infrastructural projects should be understood in terms of whose lives they make more livable—and the futures they enable or foreclose.
Cover to Eric Helleiner's "The Neomercantilists: A Global Intellectual History," a Japanese=style screen print depicting men discussing business by a train, with boats in the background.

Developmental Realism

Now is a critical time to acquire a better understanding of this misunderstood and oversimplified philosophy known as Neomercantilism.
Black and white photograph of crowd in China holding pictures of Mao Zedong in celebration.

U.S. Relations With China 1949–2022

U.S.-China relations have evolved from tense standoffs to a complex mix of intensifying diplomacy, growing international rivalry, and increasingly intertwined economies.
Oil rigs just south of town extract crude for Chevron at sunrise in Taft, California, on July 22, 2008.

How Private Oil Companies Took Over U.S. Energy Security

And why it’s time to take it back.
1950s American family watching TV.

How American Culture Ate the World

A new book explains why Americans know so little about other countries.
Farmers harvest wheat near the village of Tbilisskaya, Russia, July 21, 2021. That nation’s farmers produce nearly a fifth of world wheat exports.

How High Energy Prices Emboldened Putin

Rupert Russell’s new book shows how the financialization of commodity prices worsens volatility and destabilizes geopolitics. It couldn’t be more timely.
Drapery of a soldier displayed in a barren field.

The Economic Weapon

The fate of the League of Nations provides a stark warning about using sanctions as a tool of modern warfare.
The Central Bank of the Russian Federation.

The Modern History of Economic Sanctions

A review of “The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War."
Black and white drawing of early 19th century naval vessels.

The Insurers’ Wars

When Thomas Jefferson’s administration was debating whether to declare war against Britain, it came up against America’s wealthy and influential marine underwriters.
Activists with a sign saying "No More Stolen Sisters" march for missing and murdered Indigenous women at the Women's March California 2019 on January 19, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. Sarah Morris/Getty

Colonial Traffic in Native American Women

“European and Indian men—as captors, brokers, and buyers—used captured and enslaved women to craft relationships of trade and reciprocity with one another.”
Botanical drawing of a bunch of grapes.

Fruits of Empire

The plant explorers of the USDA succeeded in bringing the world’s fruits to American supermarkets. But at what human, ecological, and gustatory cost?
Picture of Richard Nixon from National Archive.

The Day That Richard Nixon Changed U.S. Economic Policy Forever

Fifty years ago, in response to rising inflation, he rejected several long-standing practices. His Keynesian turn holds lessons for today’s economy.

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