History Lesson: Luddites

A brief history of Luddism
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2026/07/23/a-brief-history-of-luddism
States ultimately decide how fast technology is adopted. 

Pointless Wars

War Has Become Pointless
https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/07/06/war-iran-ukraine-israel-united-states-russia-pointless/
Military conflict has always existed. It’s just stopped making sense. 

The Strong Suffer What They Must
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/us-russia-discredited-by-smaller-powers-by-harold-james-2026-07
Foolish military interventions driven by outdated calculations of economic power have thoroughly discredited the old big powers. Thucydides might well have appreciated the irony of a world in which smaller, weaker countries like Ukraine and Iran can expose Russia and the United States, respectively, as paper tigers. 

History Lesson: The American Revolution

Why the Last Battle of the American Revolution Was Fought in India
https://www.newyorker.com/news/global-notes/why-the-last-battle-of-the-american-revolution-was-fought-in-india
The conflicts that took place elsewhere in the world have receded. 

History Lesson: The True Nature of American Capitalism

250 Years of American State Capitalism
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/american-state-capitalism-started-under-george-washington-never-ceased-by-shang-jin-wei-2026-07
While the prevailing economic narrative in the United States has often extolled free markets, policymaking itself has always been more pragmatic. From its very founding, the US has had a hybrid model in which the state directs, subsidizes, and occasionally bails out private enterprise in the service of national priorities.
 
America's been arguing over trade for more than 250 years
https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economics/2026/americas-been-arguing-over-trade-more-250-years 

Oligarchy versus Democracy

Oligarchy’s Ancient Origins
https://www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/ancient-greece-oligarchy-bitter-struggle-with-democracy-by-matt-simonton-2026-07
The struggle between democracy and oligarchy in classical Greece was bitter, with oligarchies relying on skillfully designed political institutions to shore up unpopular regimes. As concerns grow over the “rule of the few” in the United States, Americans should consider how their own institutions are doing oligarchs’ work for them. 

The Founders Are Why America Is Rich. That Legacy Is at Risk.
https://www.wsj.com/economy/american-institutions-founding-fathers-wealth-056bbee8
Checks, balances and trust in personal agency made the U.S. a haven for entrepreneurs and wealth creation.

Economic History: Spain versus Britain

Accounting for the Reversal of Fortune: Spain and Britain,1501–1800
https://ehes.org/wp/EHES_302.pdf 

People/Politicians are Not Rational Actors

Jeremy Warner:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/05/30/a-year-from-now-nobody-will-be-talking-about-iran/
In the lead-up to the First World War, stock markets sailed blissfully on: not because investors were unaware of the ever-louder drum beat of impending conflict but because they collectively assumed none of the great powers would be stupid enough to stumble into the catastrophe of an all-out war.
That view was perfectly encapsulated in a highly influential book by Norman Angell, a British journalist, published a few years before the outbreak of hostilities. Angell’s The Great Illusion argued that the economic costs of war and the accompanying disruptions to trade were likely to be so devastating that nobody could possibly hope to gain by starting one.
Economic interdependence between industrial countries would be “the real guarantor of the good behavior of one state to another”, Angell argued. This had never stopped countries from going to war before but it was also true that the level of economic integration and interchange between elites in Europe at the time was without precedent. Sadly, it didn’t help. Yet markets refused to believe in bad outcomes right up to the point where troops were mobilized and borders closed. 

Prehistory of A.I. Slop

The Prehistory of A.I. Slop
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/05/25/the-prehistory-of-ai-slop
Before ChatGPT, there was the Plot Robot, Auto-Beatnik, and a century’s worth of schemes for automating authorship. 

How Buddhism Transformed Asia

The Unlikely Story of How Buddhism Transformed Asia
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/14/t-magazine/nepal-buddha-kathmandu-buddhism.html
Starting in Nepal, the birthplace of the Buddha, we trace how the religion spread across the continent, changing it forever. 

Obsession with the Future

Do We Think Too Much About the Future?
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/open-questions/do-we-think-too-much-about-the-future
For most of history, people didn’t try predicting it. Maybe that was wise. 

The Politicization of History

Writing the Trump Years into History
https://www.newyorker.com/news/american-chronicles/writing-the-trump-years-into-history
How do you bring an American-history textbook up to date when the country’s past has become a political battleground? 

The American Revolution Wasn’t the Main Event
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/05/11/republic-and-empire-trevor-burnard-andrew-jackson-oshaughnessy-book-review-freedom-round-the-globe-sarah-pearsall
Americans have long imagined that they set off a global age of revolt. Seen within the era’s wider wars of empire, the story looks rather different.

Does Trade Cause Peace?

Does trade cause peace? Ask an economist by Soumaya Keynes
https://www.ft.com/content/d141cf41-e47a-4657-9f6b-ed26e6c59ac6
Researchers have been trawling history to measure the pacifying effects of moving goods around. 

The Iran War and America's International Standing

After Iran, America may turn against Israel
https://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/2026/04/after-iran-american-may-turn-against-israel
On 11 February, Benjamin Netanyahu walked down the stairs in the West Wing and – this is not usual for a foreign dignitary – straight into the Situation Room. 
Inside, he tried to persuade Donald Trump to launch a war against Iran. According to The New York Times, Netanyahu promised the president that they could kill the Supreme Leader, Mossad could foment a popular rebellion and the regime would be too weak to close the Strait of Hormuz. Trump was on board: Operation Epic Fury was launched shortly afterwards. But the war didn’t work out as promised. Forty-one days later, the mullahs are still in control, Iran is charging a toll for ships to pass through the Strait and Israel is waging an increasingly brutal war in Lebanon. In other words, Trump was willingly mis-sold: what was supposed to be another Venezuela looks like an American Suez.
 
The end of the American empire
https://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/geopolitics/2026/04/the-end-of-the-american-empire
The president and his coterie imagined that decapitating the leadership – “getting rid of some people,” as he put it in his golf club homily – would disable the regime. But Tehran is not Caracas, from which President Nicolás Maduro and his wife were extracted in a special operation on 3 January and Venezuela handed over to the deputy leader, Delcy Rodríguez. Iran’s government is multi-layered and – for all its murderous repression of the millions who yearn for a Western way of life – deeply embedded in society. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) manage a business empire spanning oil, telecommunications, construction and banking. The Basij militias, volunteer paramilitary forces used to crush domestic resistance, receive state benefits and jobs in IRGC-linked companies. Religious foundations and clerical elites control billions of dollars of assets seized from dissidents and minorities. For these groups, losing the war means losing their property, their livelihoods and their lives. They will fight to the death. Some may welcome death in battle as an opportunity for martyrdom – an enduring and still potent element in Shia Islam. The White House screens out these facts, along with Iran’s mastery of low-cost techniques of asymmetric warfare.

Trump Has Fallen into a Familiar U.S. Foreign Policy Trap
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/11/opinion/trump-iran-war-middle-east.html

 
The Trump Administration Is in a Psychotic State
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/10/opinion/trump-iran-psychotic-state-institutions.html
What are the implications if the government of the world’s most powerful country is chaotic in its thinking and not reliably in touch with reality?
 
Fareed Zakaria on the Moral Cost of Trump’s War
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/10/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-fareed-zakaria.html 

History Lesson: Most Devastating Military Conflicts

The 4 Most Destructive Conflicts in All of Human History
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/4-most-destructive-conflicts-all-human-history-162752

From Gemini AI:
When adjusted for global population, the Mongol conquests (13th century) and the Three Kingdoms period in China (2nd/3rd century) were far more devastating than World War II. While WWII caused 70–85 million deaths (roughly 3-4% of the population), the Mongol conquests killed an estimated 11-13% of the world population, and the Three Kingdoms era may have wiped out 13-17%.

Here are the biggest wars adjusted for global population:

• Mongol Conquests (1200–1300): Estimated to have killed 20-60 million, representing roughly 5-13% of the world population at the time.
• Three Kingdoms Period (220–280): This conflict claimed roughly 34 million lives, equivalent to roughly 13-17% of the global population.
• The An Lushan Rebellion (755–763): Estimates suggest this conflict killed up to 16% of the world's population.
• Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864): An extremely violent civil war in China, which caused 20-70 million deaths, or about 1.4-2.6% of the world population.

While World War II remains the deadliest in absolute numbers (highest total death count), these earlier conflicts were far more catastrophic relative to the smaller total number of people living at those times.

Iran War - Geopolitics and Strategic Shifts

It's time to end the world's delusions over the Iran energy crisis
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/its-time-end-worlds-delusions-over-iran-energy-crisis-2026-04-07/

Electrostates vs. Petrostates
https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/03/23/climate-change-world-order-green-transition-fossil-fuel/
China is building a new green bloc, while the United States is doubling down on oil.

The Iran War Is Making the American Economy More Dominant Than Ever
https://www.wsj.com/economy/the-iran-war-is-making-the-american-economy-more-dominant-than-ever-287f9569
America’s role as a major oil-and-gas exporter tempts President Trump to walk away from the Strait of Hormuz and wield leverage over others.
 
A New Oil Shock Accelerates a Return to Nuclear Power
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/06/business/nuclear-energy-iran-war.html
Shocks to natural gas supplies are spurring countries in Asia and elsewhere to rethink their rejection of nuclear energy after the 2011 disaster in Fukushima, Japan. 

 
Iran War Effect
Fareed's Take: https://youtu.be/w2FoG5s1WGQ
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/04/03/iran-war-trump-hormuz-mistake/
 
The Iran Shock
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/iran/iran-shock
And the Dangerous Allure of Energy Autarky. 

The West cannot understand Iran
https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/2026/03/the-west-cannot-understand-iran
Complacent commentators are obscuring the realities of the conflict.

Big Picture View:

The Follies of Predicting War

https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/03/20/book-review-war-and-power-phillips-payson-obrien/

One excellent contribution to this debate is a recently published book by Phillips Payson O’Brien. In War and Power: Who Wins Wars—and Why, O’Brien, who is a professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, reminds us that the outcome of war may indeed be influenced by aspects beyond guns, air power, and the number of soldiers. He argues that a more holistic approach to how military might is usually measured will improve our understanding of who wins wars and why—and potentially even deter states from going to war in the first place.

History Lessons: Wars and Unintended Consequences

This Is How the Iran War Goes Global
https://www.thefp.com/p/niall-ferguson-this-is-how-the-iran
 
Before Waging War, Consult Historians First
https://www.noemamag.com/before-waging-war-consult-historians-first/
The Iran war fits into a long list of predictable miscalculations. 

Origins of Monotheism

How God Got So Great
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/03/09/how-god-got-so-great
What monotheism means is surprisingly hard to pin down, but there’s a reason it swept the world. 

History Lesson: Native Americans and Rule of Law

The Indian Removal Act: unchecked expansionism and disregard for the rule of law
https://www.economist.com/essay/2026/02/02/the-indian-removal-act-unchecked-expansionism-and-disregard-for-the-rule-of-law
IN 1817, GENERAL Andrew Jackson invaded Florida, claimed by the Spanish empire but inhabited mostly by Seminole people. Jackson and his troops used scorched-earth tactics: destroying villages, burning cornfields and sacking storehouses, in the hope that terror and hunger would drive Seminoles to surrender. They killed warriors and civilians alike, and captured the Native leaders Hillis Harjo and Homathle Micco as well as Alexander Arbuthnot and Robert Ambrister, two British citizens who had aided the indigenous communities. Jackson executed them all without proper due process. 

Is the US Addicted to War?

The United States Is Still Addicted to War
https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/03/02/trump-iran-war-united-states-addicted/
Why every U.S. president ends up in a major military campaign.
 
Trump Spent Years Denouncing U.S. Intervention. Now He’s Toppling Foreign Leaders.
https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/trump-iran-us-regime-change-a6f60e6b
The operation in Iran marked a sharp reversal for a president whose political rise was fueled by American fatigue with regime change.

The Perils of a Power Vacuum in Iran
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/power-vacuum-in-iran-heightens-nuclear-threat-by-stephen-holmes-2026-03

The US sees regimes it can strike and concludes that striking them resolves the dangers they pose. But eliminating a visible adversary does not neutralize the underlying threat; it merely transforms that threat into something elusive, decentralized, unaccountable, and impossible to negotiate with or monitor.  

Colonization and Path Dependency

Abad, L., Maurer, N. The long shadow of history? the impact of colonial labor institutions on economic development in Peru. J Econ Growth 30, 521–565 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10887-024-09249-9
Abstract
We examine a canonical case of forced labor: the mita and the encomienda in colonial Peru. The mita was a labor draft designed to provide workers for mines, churches, and public works in colonial Peru and Bolivia. The encomienda granted a select group of Spanish settlers the right to extract labor and tribute from indigenous peoples. We examine the impact of forced labor using a dataset of 500 indigenous settlements scattered across modern-day Peru. We find that forced labor gravely impacted the Peruvian communities subjected to it, but the effects nearly dissipated before the end of the colonial period (1532-1811). We test for a possible “reversal of fortune” in the postcolonial period by looking at an array of variables for the 19th to the 21st centuries (literacy, access to land, road density, and luminosity) and find no significant differences. The results hold when we examine the mita and encomienda separately. The mechanisms that caused its impact to fade were migration, growing outside options for indigenous labor, and opposition from the Crown and new Spanish settlers who lacked access to forced labor. 

Dell, M. Persistence and transformation in economic development. Ind. Econ. Rev. 56, 285–311 (2021).
https://doi.org/10.1007/s41775-021-00122-9  
Abstract
Much work in economic history has been done to study patterns of development in the USA and Europe. However, insights from other areas and regions are also required to better inform policy today that helps elucidate how policy interacts with the broader historical and institutional context and how the effects of these policies unfold over time. In this light, the paper focuses on illustrations from previous works of the author on extractive colonial institutions and their persistent effects on development paths later on. The first example is of the Peruvian mining mita. Here, the natives of Peru were forced by the Spanish to work in silver mines. The study focusses on the persistence of differential land tenures and public goods provision. The second example, a joint work with Ben Olken, considers Java's cultivation system in the 19th century, where the Javanese were forced to produce sugar that was sold in the world market by the Dutch. It shows that the sugar factory areas of the 19th century are more industrialized today. They are richer with better infrastructure and education levels as compared to the nearby counterfactual locations.