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Last week, the world witnessed Donald Trump’s supporters storming and breaching the U.S. Capitol, stoked by his defiant speech claiming the election had been stolen from him. I watched the videos online with my heart in my throat — the ecstasy of the participants, the chaos and the violence, and the presence of hysteria; they … Continue reading I Watched the Mob in the Capitol with My Heart in My Throat; It Reminded Me of China’s Cultural Revolution

As we take stock of the events of the past week,  a clear consensus has emerged – one of America’s two major parties is in trouble. The Republican Party now has a substantial Trump faction, and this faction has the support of rank-and-file party workers (intentionally so because of a makeover of the party in … Continue reading Change the rules – a message from 19th century Europe for America’s political elites

It was easy to imagine, before the pandemic arrived, that societies today would handle an epidemiological challenge much better than those in the past had done. And in many ways that’s proven to be the case. Scientific knowledge and advanced technology have made it possible to quickly identify viruses and their mutations, to generate and … Continue reading Quarantine in History: No Easy Way Out

The Historical Political Economy (HPE) field has attracted increasing scholarly interest in recent years, with influential papers in top disciplinary journals and a new journal devoted exclusively to it launched in 2021. One important aspect of HPE’s development is that it has occurred alongside the “credibility revolution” in empirical social science. As a result, much … Continue reading What are we doing in Historical Political Economy?

2021's economic history job market papers span centuries, continents, and fields

In 1891, the Federal Elections Bill – spearheaded by Rep. Henry Cabot Lodge (R-MA) – died in the Senate. This bill would have provided the federal government with new power to enforce African American voting rights in the South. Its demise was a devastating blow to the Republican Party, and also signaled the GOP’s last … Continue reading When Democrats in Congress Tried to Ban Interracial Marriage

What is the New Year’s holiday? For many Americans, it is an opportunity to stay up late, to take a day off work, to watch some football, to resolve to do better. And that’s in a good year. It is no surprise that a 2011 poll found that few ranked New Year’s their favorite holiday. … Continue reading Novyi god

The study of historical persistence occupies a prominent place in the HPE literature. Generally, persistence studies examine the effect of a past societal feature – an institution, a type of endowment, a cultural norm – or historical event – such as past conflict or migration – on outcomes today. Several posts of Broadstreet editors have … Continue reading Time-varying persistence

As the United States prepares to undertake one of the largest vaccination efforts in its history - the photo above shows an earlier such effort, the polio vaccination of the mid-to-late 1950s - approximately 60 percent of Americans report in a recent PEW survey that they are likely or very likely to take up a … Continue reading Trust in Medicine

As the Trump administration limps to a close, the main legislative achievement of the last four years has been a tax cut for the wealthy.  For years Democrats have wondered how Republicans can get away with cutting taxes for the rich, again and again, and yet still count on a large number of votes from … Continue reading Tax Cuts and the U.S. Economy