Here is a nice essay on the
benefits of higher education from the New York Times.
Also from the New York Times is Mankiw
on the economics of trade and the politics of trade.
Here is more
from Pseudoerasmus on cotton and economic growth, highlighting McCloskey’s argument
about the role of cotton in the Industrial Revolution.
Speaking of cotton and economic growth, The
Half Has Never Been Told won two awards last week. I feel like the boy who said
the emperor has no clothes, except I keep saying the Baptist has no evidence.
It is not a great work of history; it is not good
work of history, and it should be obvious to any historian who reads the book.
1.
Baptist misrepresents
the historiography of slavery and his references are often missing or misleading.
See also an
earlier post of mine and the recent post
by Pseudoerasmus
3.
Baptist does not make a pretense of using
evidence to support some of his conclusions. To me the most obvious problem,
one that even non-historians should be able to see, is the way that he
makes up an estimate of the economic importance of slavery. Many people
have suggested that the book shows how slavery was central to the development
of the American economy. That argument hinges on this calculation, and the
numbers in that calculation are clearly just made up. To me, this tendency to
just make things up is the most damning of the problems with the book. Although
it can’t be proven, I suspect that every book on history contains some error.
We all make mistakes. Consequently, problems with historiography, facts and
citation are matters of degree. It is difficult to say at what point such
mistakes start to raise doubts about the book as a whole. On the other hand,
making up numbers is not a mistake. It is not like misremembering a date, or
name, or citation. It demonstrates a fundamental disregard for the role of
evidence in historical argument.
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