Chartbook #135: A Chartbook sampler
It is a delight to welcome new readers to Chartbook.
Many have come by way of the very generous profile in The Atlantic by Annie Lowery.
Both for new readers and those who have been following Chartbook for a while, it may be of interest to take a tour of some of the older posts.
Much of the material in the newsletter is by its nature ephemeral but some of the posts cover issues that have a longer sell by date.
For the first anniversary of the newsletter in the fall of 2021 I put together an index.
Here are some particular recommendations. Back in the fall of 2021 I did two pieces to accompany the release of my COVID book Shutdown, which still rattle around in my mind.
On Keynes and why we can afford anything we can actually do.
And on writing in media res, which my friend Nick Mulder suggested to me might actually be a great alternative title for the Newsletter.
I am in the Abacos right now, and two pieces I wrote here last year come to mind.
Chartbook #20 on The Caribbean, Central America and the "Brazilianization" thesis, which was a response to a fascinating article by Alex Hochuli.
The other, Chartbook #21, was an essay about Vasily Grossman’s Stalingrad novels.
I wrote it in the weeks following my father’s unexpected death and the essay carries some of the emotion of that moment.
Then there is Chartbook #45 on the Mariel boatlift to Miami and the award of the Nobel prize in economics to David Card, “or the history of a natural experiment”.
Chartbook #37 on how to write the economic history of China, the Soviet Union and Eurasia’s great divergence is one I regularly come back to.
Chartbook #44 on William Jennings Bryan, populism, the gold standard, and the “cross of gold” speech.
More recently I’ve done a mini-series on the ideological tropes that have emerged from the war in Ukraine.
But perhaps the newsletter that has meant most to me is an appreciation of Stuart Hall’s autobiography.
In any case, this is an invitation to browse the archive and enjoy.
And if you find stuff you enjoy and have not yet hit the subscription button, please do consider giving your support to the enterprise.
Many congratulations, I read your nice profile in The Atlantic, although I have been a subscriber for a while
As I am from Florence, the city of the Renaissance, I must say you are profoundly a Renaissance man, as you analyze various subjects and draw the links among many dots in order to understand current events or historical moments
Congratulations on being recognized for your merits!
I too read about you in The Atlantic. And sorry to pose this unrelated question here, but since you’re a crisis historian, do you think the Abe assassination is leading to war? I am not a history scholar but it occurred to me that key assassinations have preceded wars. Your thoughts?