The hottest History Substack posts right now

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The Peculiar Institution, pt. 3

The Martyr Made Substack • 2063 implied HN points • 31 Jan 24
đź’ľ History
  1. European Christians felt confident in their mission to civilize based on encountering different practices in Africa and the New World.
  2. The rituals of human sacrifice and cannibalism encountered by European explorers profoundly affected them and challenged their beliefs.
  3. The discovery of human sacrifice among different cultures led to a distrustful attitude among the conquistadors and influenced their interactions with indigenous peoples.

A demonstration at Shippingport

The Works in Progress Newsletter • 19 implied HN points • 05 Mar 26
đź’ľ History Nuclear power Cold War US History Energy Policy Military History Technology History
  1. Admiral Hyman Rickover was the driving force behind America’s entry into nuclear power, pushing pressurized-water reactors for submarines and leading the Shippingport civilian reactor project.
  2. Shippingport was the first full-scale U.S. civilian nuclear plant built as a government-industry demonstration; it proved the technology but was costly and not yet economical, while creating much of the industrial know‑how for later reactors.
  3. Nuclear power grew out of wartime weapons programs and Cold War politics, and policy choices—like Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace and the 1954 Atomic Energy Act—shifted development toward private industry even as concerns about safety, cost, and proliferation persisted.

2,000-year-old wine and the uncanny immediacy of the past

Res Obscura • 5287 implied HN points • 15 Jan 25
đź’ľ History Archaeology Artifacts Ancient Civilizations Cultural heritage Historical Analysis
  1. Ancient artifacts like the Carmona Wine Urn help us connect with the past. They remind us that people long ago lived lives similar to ours.
  2. Discoveries like the oldest known wine show how well-preserved objects can teach us about history. They tell us more than famous artworks or historical figures.
  3. Historical artifacts like the Pazyryk Rug and the Sword of Goujian highlight everyday life in the past. They help us imagine what it was like for ordinary people back then.

Graduate Economic History: Spring 2026 (DeLong Segment)

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 130 implied HN points • 21 Jan 26
đź’ľ History Economic History World History Institutional history
  1. Take a very long view—five thousand years—to ask why the world stayed poor for so long, why it later grew richer, and why that change has been uneven.
  2. Economic models like supply and demand are useful but are compressed stories that must be placed in their real historical and institutional context rather than treated as universal laws.
  3. In the agrarian era, technological advances and productivity gains mostly bought more people not better lives, so the shift to agriculture and settled states may not have clearly improved human flourishing; understanding why the Malthusian trap persisted and then loosened is key to explaining modern economic growth.

Against Hankins: You Can't Use Moral Relativism to Claim a Warrior Is "Great" in Any Sense Connoting Admirability

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 215 implied HN points • 02 Jan 26
đź’ľ History Ancient History Historiography Religious history Political Ideology War Crimes
  1. Using moral relativism to call a warrior "great" because atrocities were "normal then" simply excuses war crimes and is morally dangerous.
  2. Saying conquerors were divinely favored and thus beyond criticism treats violence as sanctified and undermines basic moral and Christian principles.
  3. It’s false that past generations ignored the ethical costs of wartime violence; people then debated actions like firebombing and nukes, so we have standing to judge historic atrocities.
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No, Aleksander the Great Was Not "Great" in Any Sense with a Strong Connotation of "Admirable"

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 215 implied HN points • 02 Jan 26
đź’ľ History Ancient History Historiography Intellectual history Political Ideology Western civilization Modern History
  1. Some people argue that Alexander’s victories show an exceptional, even divine, greatness and that modern critics are too materialistic or small-minded to recognize this kind of extraordinary leadership.
  2. Others insist that centering the victims and the violent realities of his campaigns makes it hard to call him admirable, and modern scholarship highlights his imperial aggression and moral costs.
  3. The dispute is tied to larger cultural fights over how to teach and define "Western civilization," with critics pushing for narrower, historically grounded frames like the "Dover Circle" rather than a grand, continuous West narrative.

HOISTED FROM THE ARCHIVES: Yes: Pre-Modern Economies Were Meaningfully "Malthusian" (Which Does Not Mean Incomes Were Stable)

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 76 implied HN points • 04 Feb 26
đź’ľ History Economic History Demography Urbanization Ancient History Medieval History Historiography
  1. Pre-modern economies were essentially Malthusian: slow technological gains could raise living standards only temporarily because higher incomes typically led to faster population growth that eventually offset those gains.
  2. Random shocks and long-run events—like plagues, good harvests, trade booms, or imperial peace—can produce centuries-long rises, falls, and plateaus in incomes and urbanization even inside a Malthusian system.
  3. Cultural and institutional factors (luxury tastes, marriage customs, infanticide, larger trade zones) can raise average incomes and create long "supercycles," but they do not by themselves produce sustained, compounding living‑standard growth for the broad population.

The Peculiar Institution, pt. 2

The Martyr Made Substack • 2044 implied HN points • 16 Jan 24
đź’ľ History Slavery Religion Civilization Hierarchy Aristotle
  1. People in different eras have accepted practices that we would find morally abhorrent today.
  2. We should approach historical figures with humility, understanding they made decisions based on their limited information and context.
  3. Slavery was integral to many historical societies, viewed as a necessary part of their social and economic structures.

The Historical Humility Edition

Why is this interesting? • 482 implied HN points • 13 Nov 25
đź’ľ History Historical context Historical Trends Cultural History Political History
  1. We often hear that our times are unprecedented, but history shows that every moment of change feels like a big deal. It reminds us to be humble about how special we think our current situation is.
  2. Change is happening faster than ever, but that's true of all significant moments in history. Each era has its own speed of change, and we should keep that in mind.
  3. Instead of feeling overwhelmed, we can look back at history for guidance. Understanding past events can help us make sense of today's challenges.

Invisible bonds

David Friedman’s Substack • 143 implied HN points • 22 Jan 26
đź’ľ History Medieval Political Military Legal European Diplomacy
  1. Established rules of allegiance and obligation create predictable political order, and leaders who follow those rules can rely on their supporters.
  2. When leaders break those norms and use raw power or betrayal, they lose respect and loyalty from key allies, which invites revolt and collapse.
  3. The same logic applies today: using sheer force to grab territory or ignore accepted norms (for example, trying to seize Greenland) is a strategic mistake because it destroys the invisible bonds that hold political order together.

The Wetlands Interregnum

Adjacent Possible • 126 implied HN points • 26 Jan 26
đź’ľ History Archaeology Ancient History Environmental History Cold War Technology History Agricultural history
  1. Corona satellites used mid-air film recovery and dual panoramic cameras to capture stereoscopic, high-resolution photos decades before digital imaging, giving a true 3D view of the land.
  2. Those 3D images showed ancient landscapes were more varied and less permanently arid than earlier archaeologists assumed, which challenges the idea that states arose solely to build irrigation in hopeless deserts.
  3. The 1995 declassification and transfer of Corona film to public archives and the USGS opened a priceless historical dataset for scientists to study environmental change and rethink the origins of agriculture.

CROSSPOST: SAM BOWLES: The Origin & Future of Economic Inequality

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 138 implied HN points • 16 Jan 26
đź’ľ History Economic History Political History Social history Prehistory Ancient History State formation Inequality
  1. Enduring economic inequality isn't inevitable; it arose when certain technologies and institutions—land‑limited production (like plows), proto‑states to enforce property, and slavery—made material wealth heritable and defensible.
  2. For thousands of years after the Neolithic, aggressive egalitarian norms and institutions (communal storage, public eating, anti‑dynastic burials, even destroying productive assets) actively suppressed lasting inequality, but Bronze‑Age shifts broke those norms and made inequality durable.
  3. The modern knowledge and care economy could either repeat Bronze‑Age enclosure through things like intellectual property or be steered toward greater equality by democracy, unions, social insurance, and redistributive policy, because stronger intergenerational transmission of material wealth nonlinearly amplifies inequality.

Do Eclipses Cause Rebellions?

Living Fossils • 16 implied HN points • 25 Feb 26
đź’ľ History Political History Social history Cultural History Intellectual history Chinese History Media History
  1. Total solar eclipses can spark or increase rebellions because they act as rare, highly visible public signals (Schelling points) that create common knowledge; studies find areas in totality zones are about 18% more likely to rebel in eclipse years.
  2. Common knowledge — everyone knowing that everyone else knows — is the key hurdle for mass coordination, and dramatic synchronized signals or platforms (like eclipses or social media) solve that problem and help protests spread.
  3. Authorities try to blunt these coordinating signals — historically with appeasing policies like tax cuts and today with internet censorship — and other disasters don’t work the same way because they aren’t simultaneously visible to everyone.

Gaius Marius

Classical Wisdom • 1945 implied HN points • 12 Jan 24
đź’ľ History Ancient Rome Civil War Military Leadership
  1. Gaius Marius was a significant figure in ancient Roman history who rose to power through unconventional strategies and populist support.
  2. Marius's actions led to the downfall of the Roman Republic as his rise to power and seizure of dictatorial powers shook the traditional Roman political structure.
  3. The rivalry between Gaius Marius and Sulla, and the subsequent civil wars, disrupted the balance of power in the Roman Republic and ultimately contributed to its demise.

Nomonhan, 1939

Global Inequality and More 3.0 • 1706 implied HN points • 05 Jul 25
đź’ľ History Military Geopolitics World War Political History
  1. The Nomonhan conflict in 1939 was a key battle between Japan and the Soviet Union that lasted four months. It showed the differing military strategies and political tensions between the two powers.
  2. The outcome of the battles influenced World War II alliances, as Stalin's decisions were affected by Japan's aggression and his need to manage threats from both Germany and Japan.
  3. Japan's defeats at Nomonhan led to a shift in its focus from attacking the USSR to launching an attack on the United States, which was driven by a need for resources after facing US oil embargoes.

2025 Reading List

Nemets • 219 implied HN points • 29 Dec 25
đź’ľ History Ancient History Modern History Military History Political History Archaeology Colonial History Intellectual history
  1. Canada’s political identity is fragile and regionally divided, with strong provincial differences and historic ties to both Britain and the United States shaping competing loyalties. Constitutional and judicial changes have amplified these divides and made separatist movements and political strain more plausible.
  2. Legal and institutional shifts—especially expanded judicial review and civil‑rights era policies—have empowered courts and bureaucracies to reshape public life and corporate practices, producing wide cultural and administrative effects often called “woke.” These changes can discipline institutions without mass mobilization, but they also weaken direct democratic accountability.
  3. Geography, migration, and demography drive political outcomes: settlement patterns, resource booms, and cross‑border movements shaped provinces and regions and altered national trajectories. Paying attention to these material forces helps explain why states change, fragment, or endure.

Age of Invention: All Fired Up

Age of Invention, by Anton Howes • 1665 implied HN points • 02 Jul 25
đź’ľ History Industrial Revolution Innovation Inventions British history
  1. The coal briquette, made by mixing coal dust with clay, was invented in the 16th century but never gained popularity in England despite its potential benefits like cleaner burning.
  2. A key figure, Nicolas Romero, introduced the briquette concept in England but struggled to commercialize it due to lack of support and competition from raw coal.
  3. The failure to adopt coal briquettes often happened when coal was cheap and plentiful, making the effort to make briquettes not worth it for many users.

On the Birth of Science as We Know It: Thinking Out Loud: Thursday Economic History

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 153 implied HN points • 08 Jan 26
đź’ľ History Intellectual history Science History Early Modern European history Economic History Institutional history
  1. Modern science grew when artisans' instruments, mathematical methods, printing, and new institutions came together to make empirical, publicly verifiable knowledge practical and rewarding.
  2. Political fragmentation and intense status competition among elites raised the payoff for being right, so innovators could gain support and influence instead of being suppressed by a single dominant authority.
  3. Religious shelters, academies, and print networks lowered the cost of checking and sharing results, letting experiments and reproducible methods scale into a lasting scientific community.

Blood and Baptism

KERFUFFLE • 55 implied HN points • 04 Feb 26
đź’ľ History Medieval Europe State formation Religion Military Trade Migration
  1. The Vikings—by raiding, trading, and settling—helped turn scattered Scandinavian clans into the ancestors of new peoples and the building blocks of emerging countries. They created diasporas like Normandy, the Danelaw, and the Rus' through both violence and colonization.
  2. Violence and the pursuit of treasure were central to state formation: sea-kings used raids to fund ships and armies, and military victory let rulers absorb rivals and consolidate larger realms.
  3. Trade brought foreigners and ideas like Christianity, and rulers adopted the faith because it gave divine legitimacy and administrative tools; that religious unification helped pave the way for secular, bureaucratic nation-states.

The Peculiar Institution, pt. 4

The Martyr Made Substack • 1375 implied HN points • 07 Feb 24
đź’ľ History Colonization Exploration Empires Cultural Exchange
  1. The debate over history being driven by great individuals or impersonal forces reflects the dominant cultural and economic forces of an era.
  2. Spanish and Portuguese states were built for war, with institutions and structures geared towards conquest.
  3. The Spanish conquest of the New World was part of the same campaign as Europe's defense against Ottoman incursion.

Rates of pay for newsletter writers in the sixteenth century

The Common Reader • 1311 implied HN points • 13 Jul 25
đź’ľ History Media History Early Modern Economic History Communication
  1. Between 1594 and 1640, writers of newsletters in Lucca earned between 15 and 50 scudi a year. The highest paid was Lucio Aresi from Venice, who earned 50 scudi because of his skills.
  2. In other parts of Europe, like Augsburg and Britain, news-writers made good money too. For example, John Pory received ÂŁ20 a year in the 1620s for his weekly newsletter.
  3. This history of early news-writing shows that writers were valued and paid well, similar to today’s newsletter creators like those on Substack.

The High-Wage Thesis isn’t even wrong!

Something to Consider • 159 implied HN points • 26 Jul 24
đź’ľ History Economic History Industrial Revolution Labor Economics Technological Change
  1. The High-Wage Thesis suggests that higher wages encourage investment in technology, but this idea is poorly supported by evidence. It means that just because wages are higher, it doesn't necessarily lead to faster innovation.
  2. Instead of focusing solely on labor costs, we should consider the absolute costs of resources like coal that made certain technologies more practical. This could explain some innovations without relying on the idea of higher labor costs.
  3. The assumptions behind the High-Wage Thesis might not hold true, and questioning these assumptions can lead to a deeper understanding of economic history and industrial innovations. It shows the need for careful examination of widely accepted theories.

Things Worth Remembering: Winston Churchill’s Christmas Message to America

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 3913 implied HN points • 22 Dec 24
đź’ľ History World War Speeches Political Leaders
  1. Churchill's Christmas message during a tough time reminded people to find peace in their spirits despite the ongoing war. It's a reminder that hope can exist even in dark times.
  2. The speech shows how powerful words can inspire and unify people, especially during challenging moments in history. Great leaders use their voices to encourage others.
  3. Reflecting on Churchill's ability to lead through words makes us wonder about our current leaders. We often crave charismatic leaders who can guide us through struggles.

Stephen Kotkin on Stalinism as (Mostly) Politics & (Lessly) Psychopathology

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 169 implied HN points • 29 Dec 25
đź’ľ History Soviet Union 20th century Political History Totalitarianism Historiography
  1. A capable LLM sitting at your elbow makes deep, active reading faster and more productive by supplying context, mapping arguments, and simulating interlocutors, but you must verify its output and not treat it as an oracle.
  2. Stalin is best explained as a product of politics, institutions, and historical forces—World War I, Lenin’s ruthlessness, and party patronage—rather than by childhood psychopathology.
  3. Collectivization and the famine followed a grim ideological and political logic aimed at eradicating marketized rural life, yet after consolidating power Stalin then launched the Great Terror that purged loyal elites in a way political explanations find hard to fully account for.

Americans to Celebrate: The Prophet of the Atomic Age

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 338 implied HN points • 24 Nov 25
đź’ľ History Biography 20th century Cold War Science Military Technology Intellectual
  1. John von Neumann was an extraordinarily brilliant Hungarian-born mathematician who invented game theory and helped shape America’s nuclear strategy.
  2. He warned that the technologies he helped create could threaten humanity and thought we were entering a rapidly maturing crisis.
  3. In the 1950s he predicted that military advances, early signs of global warming, and growing resource demands would make the coming decades dangerously unstable.

Niall Ferguson: Our Own Gilded Age

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 932 implied HN points • 21 Aug 25
đź’ľ History American history Economic History Cultural History Social Issues Media influence
  1. The late 19th century, known as the Gilded Age, had a lot of economic growth but also significant inequality, similar to trends we see today.
  2. Television shows like HBO’s 'The Gilded Age' can reflect our current society and its values, showcasing a contrasting elite compared to modern times.
  3. For deeper insights into societal changes, reading historical texts like Mark Twain's work may provide more clarity than watching dramatized versions on TV.

Six Analytical Threads in Search of Useful Empirical Traction: On Karl Marx's 1859 "Preface"

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 123 implied HN points • 08 Jan 26
đź’ľ History Economic History Intellectual history Political Economy Social history Historiography
  1. Material productive forces tend to shape how people organize work and property, and that organization in turn constrains laws, politics, and ideas; this soft form of historical materialism is broadly reliable.
  2. Big technological shifts cause major social stress and force institutional reworking, but change more often happens as rotating sectoral churn with institutional lag than as synchronized social revolutions.
  3. Grand stage theories and millenarian claims about history’s inevitable arc toward a single utopia are weak, and ideological or non-economic conflicts often matter on their own, so anyone using a broad theoretical label should say which specific claim they are defending.

February 21, 2026

Letters from an American • 25 implied HN points • 22 Feb 26
đź’ľ History U.S. History Political History Electoral Politics Statehood 19th century
  1. Republicans rushed to admit western territories as new states to gain senators and Electoral College votes, splitting territories and fast-tracking statehood to tilt national power in their favor.
  2. That strategy didn’t secure long-term control because economic troubles, unpopular tariff policies, and scandals helped Democrats and Populists win big gains in the 1890 midterms and elect Grover Cleveland in 1892.
  3. Critics argued these actions distorted democratic representation—tiny new states got outsized Senate power, and officials sometimes manipulated votes and the census for partisan advantage.

Genes Tag the Journey; Culture Does the Work: The Yamnaya Shock of 5000 Years Ago

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 253 implied HN points • 03 Dec 25
đź’ľ History Prehistory Archaeology Anthropology Cultural History Population Genetics Human Evolution
  1. The Yamnaya expansion about 5,000 years ago was mainly a cultural and institutional revolution—mobility, technologies, and social organization spread languages and ways of life more than they changed human biology.
  2. Their movement was boosted by accidental spread of pathogens and patterns of male-line dominance that helped patriarchy and certain Y-chromosome lineages scale across Eurasia.
  3. Modern humans are genetically very similar, so the biggest historical shifts come from cumulative cultural evolution and shared knowledge built over hundreds of thousands of years, not from small recent genetic differences.

The Ambonese Woodlot Edition

Why is this interesting? • 1085 implied HN points • 15 Jul 25
đź’ľ History Colonialism War Memory Heritage Immigration
  1. A plot of land in the Netherlands tells a deep history of World War II and colonialism. It has a hidden past with a house disguised as a normal home, which once stored munitions.
  2. The Ambonese refugees lived in a unique woodlot in the Netherlands, holding onto their dreams of independence. This place helped them preserve their culture and history for years.
  3. Our surroundings are filled with layers of history, often overlooked. Unlike places where change is constant, some areas remind us of past events and the stories tied to them.

Fullbore Friday

CDR Salamander • 1238 implied HN points • 19 Jan 24
đź’ľ History Military World War II Awards
  1. The article discusses a submarine mission during World War II targeting a Japanese cruiser.
  2. The crew faced challenges like cramped conditions, faulty equipment, and the risk of being detected by the enemy.
  3. Despite these difficulties, the crew successfully completed the mission, showcasing bravery and teamwork.

WEEK 2: Malthusian Economics :: Graduate Economic History :: Spring 2026 :: Econ 210a

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 76 implied HN points • 22 Jan 26
đź’ľ History Economic History Demography Social history World History
  1. It took tens of thousands of years for humanity to move from small bands of foragers to hundreds of millions of farmers and then to billions of post‑industrial people.
  2. During the long Malthusian agrarian era (roughly -5000 to 1500), technological gains mostly increased population rather than improving most people’s lives, leaving life nasty, brutish, and short for the majority.
  3. The shift from hunting and gathering to farming often produced worse biological living standards—people tended to become shorter, sicker, and more unequal under early agriculture.

When the Sackler Brothers studied LSD

Res Obscura • 2799 implied HN points • 29 Jan 25
đź’ľ History Psychedelics Medical Ethics Pharmaceuticals Mental health Scientific research
  1. The Sackler brothers, known for their later role in the opioid crisis, initially explored the potential of LSD and other psychedelic treatments in the 1950s. They even attended early scientific discussions about LSD.
  2. Despite their good intentions to improve mental health treatments, the Sacklers also recognized the financial gains from pharmaceuticals. This shift in focus highlights how idealistic motives can change when wealth is involved.
  3. The ongoing debate about psychedelics mirrors this historical pattern. As society cautiously opens up to these substances for therapy, there are concerns about commercialization, addiction, and the potential for harm.

The Rise and Fall of the Mail-Order Home

Construction Physics • 12735 implied HN points • 11 Jul 23
đź’ľ History American history Economic Impact
  1. In the early 20th century, mail-order homes became popular due to factors like railroad expansion and availability of goods in catalogs.
  2. Mail-order homes were not only limited to houses; they also included gas stations and barns.
  3. The fall of mail-order homes was attributed to competition from other building methods and advancements in construction technology.

Contra Marx, the Record Since 1870 Is Rotating Upheavals in Leading Sectors, Not Synchronized Economy-Wide Revolutions

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 92 implied HN points • 13 Jan 26
đź’ľ History Economic History Intellectual history Political Economy Social history Historiography Modern History
  1. Since about 1870, economic change looks more like rotating upheavals in leading sectors—sector-by-sector creative destruction—rather than a single, synchronized economy-wide Marxian revolution.
  2. Marx’s argument bundles several ideas: a stage theory of history, the claim that productive forces conflict with relations of production, and the view that economic shifts reshape legal, political, and ideological life.
  3. It’s useful to keep the insights about technology, institutional lag, and ideological conflict, but reject the millenarian, deterministic claim that a final social revolution is inevitable.