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John Sherman
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The Other Sherman’s March

How the younger brother of the famous general set out to destroy the scourge of monopoly power.
Bill Clinton meeting with the Emir of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, in the White House.
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How Qatar Became a Major Middle East Power Broker

The history behind the country's role as a key American ally that also maintains warm relations with Iran and others.
A pile of guns and rifle magazines on top of bullets.

More Guns, More Money: How America Turned Weapons Into a Consumer Commodity

How an American arms dealer and a surplus of guns in Europe after World War II popularized gun ownership.
Photo of United States bill, saying "In God We Trust."

The Deep Religious Roots of American Economics

Any attempt to understand the complexities of American economic thought without considering the significant role of religious beliefs is incomplete.
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.

Giovanni Battista Cima da Conegliano, Madonna and Child with Saint Jerome and Saint John the Baptist, ca 1492–95

How Renaissance Art Found Its Way to American Museums

We take for granted the Titians and Botticellis that hang in galleries across the U.S., little aware how and why they were acquired.
The White House surrounded by outlines of Iran, Russia, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, China, Syria, and Afghanistan.

How Four U.S. Presidents Unleashed Economic Warfare Across the Globe

U.S. sanctions have surged over the last two decades and are now in effect on almost one-third of all nations. But are they doing more harm than we realize?
Close-up of barcode being scanned.

Happy 50th Birthday to the UPC Barcode – No One Expected You Would Revolutionize Global Commerce

The scanning of a package of gum in an Ohio grocery store in 1974 marked the beginning of an era.
Oil on canvas (1993–94) depicting the third signing of the Louisiana Treaty in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Trade, Ambition, and the Rise of American Empire

High ideals have always gone together with economic self-interest in the history of the United States.
Old picture of Union soldiers holding a pot of coffee.

How Coffee Helped the Union Caffeinate Their Way to Victory in the Civil War

The North’s fruitful partnership with Liberian farmers fueled a steady supply of an essential beverage.
Art installation of cardboard pieces with the Amazon arrow logo, arranged in the shape of a cresting wave.

World in a Box: Cardboard Media and the Geographic Imagination

Cardboard boxes hold a world of meaning that spans from Amazon to the Container Corporation of America.
Boiling House at the Sugar Plantation Asunción, Cuba, 1857.

Slavery Was Crucial for the Development of Capitalism

Historian Robin Blackburn has completed a trilogy of books that provide a comprehensive Marxist account of slavery in the New World.
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.
Benjamin Franklin on the 100 dollar bill with a crash test helmet edited onto his head.

The Crash Next Time

Can histories of economic crisis provide us with useful lessons?
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
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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.
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.
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Inflation Opened the Door to American Neoliberalism

An excerpt from "The Hidden History of Neoliberalism."

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