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Review: Hit Makers by Derek Thompson
In Hit Makers, Derek Thompson tries to explain why some ideas become popular and others fade away.
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Nixonland: How a book about Richard Nixon helps explains Donald Trump
In Nixonland, Rick Perlstein looks at the origin, rise, and decline of the Nixon administration. His general view is that there was simmering white resentment underneath the optimism and change of the Kennedy Administration.
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Retailers should look to the past to compete against Amazon
Amazon has engulfed nearly every aspect of retail and is positioned for more. Its North American sales have quintupled since 2010. Between 2015 and 2016, Amazon captured well over a third of all American online retail sales—including 43 percent in 2016. Moves to vertically integrate its supply chain by solidifying an ocean freight license, marketing in-home deliver, and […]
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Review: Devil’s Bargain by Joshua Greene
Joshua Greene’s Devil’s Bargain is ostensibly about Steve Bannon. However, the book is really about how three well-financed forces coalesced and resulted in the election of Donald Trump to President of the United States.
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Yelp, Antitrust, and Google
Google, Amazon, and Facebook are modern-day railroads. The technology companies are three of the few organizations that own and control our modern infrastructure. Connor Dougherty published a nice look at how Google’s monopolist position impacts the businesses that rely on the infrastructure it owns. Like farmers and railroads before, web service providers like Yelp are effectively […]
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Why did FDR drop Henry Wallace from the 1944 Presidential Ticket?
In July 1944, a little over a year before WW2 ended, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt looked tired and sick. Publicly, he was taking a month-long rest under the guise of war planning. Privately, he was diagnosed with severe hypertension, heart disease, cardiac failure, and acute bronchitis. The stress of leading a nation at war, rehabilitating […]
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Review: The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
With a scope wide as it is personal, Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns paints a historical picture of one of the largest, but least reported events in the 21st century: the mass northern migration of African Americans.
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Book Review: How Not to Network a Nation
How Not To Network a Nation by Benjamin Peters provides an exhaustive look at one of the functional problems that plagued the Soviet experiment: information management.
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Book Review: The Most Powerful Idea in the World by William Rosen
The Most Powerful Idea in the World is a surprisingly readable, insightful, and entertaining book about the steam engine and patent law.
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Book Review: The New Deal by Michael Hiltzik
In The New Deal, journalist Michael Hiltzik, tells the story of the people, policies, and actions that shaped the nation.