Back in high school, my social studies teacher—who was, of course, also the football coach—told my class that entrepreneurs were the heroes of American history. If we enjoyed a dynamic […]

Looking back from our contemporary vantage point, the United States’ global capitalist empire looks both omnipresent and inevitable. Much of the world’s trade is denominated in dollars. American financial institutions […]

A simple leather shoe. A scratchy shirt made of cotton or wool. A roughly-hewn axe. A leather whip, braided in New Jersey. Southern slavery did not just depend on an extractive […]

Taxes. Is there anything Americans like to complain about more? This episode takes a deep dive into the U.S. tax system, paying particular attention to the property tax. Exploding a […]

450 million. According to our best estimates, that’s how many guns there are in the United States. To put that in perspective: if you gave a firearm to every single […]

In 2022 and 2023, an estimated 50 million Americans went camping. Many others participated in outdoor recreation activities ranging from mountain-climbing to sailing. According to the U.S. Department of Congress, […]

Drawing on years of archival research and over 150 oral histories, Margot Canaday’s Queer Career reveals the not-so-hidden world of LGBT work and workers in modern America. In the absence […]

Take a look around your home. Chances are you have more than one item with the label Made in China. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the United States did […]

When we study capitalism, we usually focus on the active time in people’s lives: the moments where things like work, consumption, production, trade, accumulation, and exchange all happen. But Teresa […]

In this month’s episode, co-host Jessica Levy and guest Cheryl Narumi Naruse examine popular narratives surrounding Singapore’s “miraculous” journey from Third to First world nation, currently ranked third in the world […]