Category: History

Donald Trump and the Twilight of White America – The Atlantic

Source: Donald Trump and the Twilight of White America – The Atlantic

Racial resentment and economic anxiety are not separate forces. For many voters, and particularly Trump’s supporters, they are inextricably linked.

in the last half-century, several events have pushed conservative white American middle-class men to conflate their majoritarian, economic, and cultural decline

The grievances of middle-class white Americans are not make-believe, nor is their nostalgia misplaced. … For white American middle-class men, especially those without a college degree, it was the best of times.

How the CIA Writes History

Source: How the CIA Writes History

The Cold War is over and Angleton is gone, but the espionage techniques he mastered — mass surveillance, disinformation, targeted assassination, and extrajudicial detention — remain with us, albeit on a much larger scale. Since September 11, 2001, the power of secret intelligence agencies to shape our future is obvious.

Yet it wasn’t until I went to Georgetown in search of one of Angleton’s darkest secrets that I came away with a personal lesson in how the CIA makes history — by erasing it.

From Gunpowder to World Domination – Barron’s

Source: From Gunpowder to World Domination – Barron’s

Europeans borrowed the Chinese invention of gunpowder and improved it into a world-conquering weapon.

In the 15th century, Europeans brought together three technologies—gunpowder, cannon manufacture, and large oceangoing ships—and used the result to conquer the world. By 1900, all but a handful of countries were either Western themselves or under European control.

How Maritime Insurance Built Ancient Rome

Source: How Maritime Insurance Built Ancient Rome

Rome wasn’t built in a day. The city needed its insurance industry to develop first.

Maritime insurance is the oldest form of insurance by centuries. But it looked very different when it was sought by sailors crossing the seas that Odysseus had found so perilous. It was much more speculative.

Instead of paying a fee to insure their cargo, merchants funded their voyages with loans that also served as insurance. The loans had very high interest rates, because under the terms of the loan, if the ship sank or the voyage did not succeed, the merchant did not have to repay the loan. This practice, which dates back to at least 1800 BCE and Ancient Babylon, is known as “bottomry”—a reference to the fact that lenders could claim the ship itself if they were not paid back on time.