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Two bunches of bananas with Chiquita labels.

When the United Fruit Company Tried to Buy Guatemala

How a sitting, elected national government found itself in the position of having to buy its own country.
by Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò via The Nation on December 7, 2021
A crowd gathered around a railroad track at the ceremony marking the completion of the first transcontinental railroad.

Breaking the Myth About America’s ‘Great’ Railroad Expansion

Historian Richard White on the greed, ineptitude and economic cost behind the transcontinental railroads, and the implications for infrastructure policy today.
by Richard White, Jake Blumgart via Governing on November 18, 2021
Picture of the field at the Cyclone's Stadium in Coney Island, New York.

How Government Devastated Minor League Baseball

And why stopping the subsidies can help bring it back.
by Matt Welch via Reason on October 10, 2021
Colorful vaccination graphic

Long, Strange TRIPS: The Grubby History of How Vaccines Became Intellectual Property

Not long ago, life-saving medical know-how was viewed as belonging to everyone. What happened?
by Alexander Zaitchik via The New Republic on June 1, 2021
A shoe stepping on money.

Islands in the Stream

Musicians are in peril, at the mercy of giant monopolies that profit off their work.
by David Dayen via The American Prospect on March 22, 2021

Is Anti-Monopolism Enough?

A new book argues that US history has been a struggle between monopoly and democracy, but fails to address class and labor when decoding inequality.
by Gabriel Winant via The Nation on January 21, 2020

In 1930s New York, the Mayor Took on the Mafia by Banning Artichokes

Gangs and mafiosos have a long history with food crime.
by Mark Hay via Atlas Obscura on January 17, 2020

Amid a Revival of Anti-Monopoly Sentiment, a New Book Traces Its History

Matt Stoller charts the shifts in American attitudes toward corporate consolidation.
by Kyle Sammin via National Review on October 15, 2019

When California Went to War Over Eggs

As the Gold Rush brought more settlers to San Francisco, battles erupted over the egg yolks of a remote seabird colony.
by Jessica Gingrich via Smithsonian on April 15, 2019

A Blizzard of Prescriptions

Three recent books explore different aspects of opiate addiction in America.
by Emily Witt via London Review of Books on April 4, 2019

Debunking the Capitalist Cowboy

Business schools fetishize innovation, but their heroes succeeded due to manipulation of corporate law, not personal brilliance.
by Nan Enstad via Boston Review on March 20, 2019

Here Is a Human Being

The Spotify and Ancestry partnership proposes to entertain users based on the narrowest possible conception of who they are.
by Cam Scott via Popula on September 27, 2018
Barbed wire fence

The Scientist Who Lost America's First Climate War

The explorer John Wesley Powell tried to prevent the overdevelopment of the West.
by John F. Ross via The Atlantic on September 10, 2018

Ten Years After the Crash, We Are Still Living in the World It Brutally Remade

A seismic reading of the financial earthquake and its aftershocks, including those that still jolt us today.
by Christopher Caldwell, Malcolm Harris, Frank Rich, Timothy Shenk, Hanna Rosin, Rachael Combe, Sarah Leonard, Lauren Levy, Heather Havrilesky, Allison P. Davis via Intelligencer on August 5, 2018
partner

Why We Need Government to Safeguard Against the New Robber Barons

Competition among media companies is crucial to democracy.
by Gregory Church via Made By History on July 31, 2018

The Man Who Created the World Wide Web Has Some Regrets

Tim Berners-Lee has seen his creation debased by everything from fake news to mass surveillance. But he’s got a plan to fix it.
by Katrina Brooker via Vanity Fair on July 1, 2018

‘Crush Them’: An Oral History of the Lawsuit That Upended Silicon Valley

Twenty years ago, Microsoft tried to eliminate its competition in the race for the internet's future. The government had other ideas.
by Victor Luckerson via The Ringer on May 18, 2018

The Dot-Coms Were Better Than Facebook

Twenty years ago, another high-profile tech executive testified before Congress. It was a more innocent time.
by Ian Bogost via The Atlantic on April 13, 2018
A souvenir superbowl 53 football outside of a stadium
partner

The NFL: America’s Socialist Utopia

The Super Bowl might be a capitalist bonanza — but its creation was the ultimate socialist act.
by Jesse Berrett via Made By History on February 2, 2018

The Anti-Capitalist Woman Who Created Monopoly—Before Others Cashed In

The beloved board game's long-hidden origin story debunks the myth of a male lone genius.
by Mary Pilon via What It Means to Be American on March 27, 2017
Go on Monopoly board

The Twisted History of Your Favorite Board Game

An interview with Mary Pilon about her new book, ‘The Monopolists,’ which uncovers the real story about how Monopoly became the game it is today.
by Mary Pilon, Jessica Gross via Longreads on March 1, 2015

Before Greed

There was a time when Americans valued 'competency' over riches and saw wealth as the cause of poverty.
by Richard White via Boston Review on June 7, 2013
Trucks and cars moving on the highway

Keep on Truckin’

The road to right-wing deregulation began on our nation's highways.
by Matthew D. Lassiter via Democracy Journal on December 10, 2008
Portrait of Henry George

“The Great Enigma of Our Times”

The 1881, Henry George’s ”Progress and Poverty” proposed a land value tax — helping to usher in the Progressive Era.
by Hunter Dukes via The Public Domain Review on May 21, 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
A man in a suit with angel wings clipped to his back, tipping a hat with six different arms.

The Cult of the Entrepreneur

Why do Americans idealize people who found businesses?
by Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein via The New Republic on February 17, 2025
A advertisement for the BankAmericard depicting it as a card for the American family.

How Did America Become the Nation of Credit Cards?

Americans have always borrowed, but how exactly did their lives become so entangled with the power of plastic cards?
by Sean H. Vannatta via Aeon on April 22, 2024
The 59th Street electric powerhouse, New York City, 1904.

The Utility of Utilities

Climate activists are no fans of electric utilities. But the alternatives that they often prefer will not deliver infrastructural change at the scale we need.
by Matt Huber, Fred Stafford via Damage on April 1, 2024
Old car holding up a mining chute on the over of the book “The Bootleg Coal Rebellion”

Rock-Fuel and Warlike People: On Mitch Troutman’s “The Bootleg Coal Rebellion”

Native son Jonah Walters finds something entirely too innocent about the tales told about the anthracite industry’s origins.
by Jonah Walters via Los Angeles Review of Books on March 21, 2024
The Hollywood sign replaced with the words "The End."

The Life and Death of Hollywood

Film and television writers face an existential threat.
by Daniel Bessner via Harper’s on March 21, 2024
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