Plain History: The Gilded Age

Plain History: The Gilded Age

Corruption. Class wars. Technological splendor. The dawn of a new age of business and government. Rockefeller and Carnegie. The Gilded Age in America—roughly the 1870s through the early 1900s—was one of the most fascinating and misunderstood eras in our history. It seems like every week, news organizations claim that the U.S. is in a new Gilded Age. But what does that mean? What was the Gilded Age? Today’s guest is Richard White, award-winning historian and author of ‘The Republic for Which It Stands,’ a mammoth history of America between the end of the Civil War and the end of the 19th century. We talk about how corruption and monopoly and power worked during that period. We talk about Rockefeller and Carnegie and Morgan, and how these giants typified the era with their business genius and their thin sense of morality. We talk about how the monopolies of this era used the government, and the government used these monopolies. And we talk about how the movements that emerged from the Gilded Age invented the modern world. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Richard White Producer: Devon Baroldi P.S. If you live in Seattle, Atlanta, or the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area, Derek is coming your way in March! See him live at book events in your city. Tickets here! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jaksot(348)

America in the Age of Diagnosis

America in the Age of Diagnosis

America is sicker than ever. That’s what the data says, anyway. Psychological and psychiatric diagnoses have soared. Between the 1990s and the mid-2000s, bipolar disorder among American youth grew by...

9 Syys 202557min

Trumponomics Explained, Part 2: The Enshittification of American Power

Trumponomics Explained, Part 2: The Enshittification of American Power

In the second of our two-episode series on Donald Trump, economics, and power, we talk to Henry Farrell, a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins. Farrell has written extensively on how the U...

5 Syys 202552min

What Is Trumponomics? Part 1: How Donald Trump Is Breaking American Capitalism

What Is Trumponomics? Part 1: How Donald Trump Is Breaking American Capitalism

Today is the first of two interviews this week trying to answer this question: What is Trumponomics? From the 1980s to the 2010s, it was generally assumed that Republicans and Democrats had settled d...

3 Syys 202549min

The Healthiest "Super-Agers" Have One Thing in Common, According to a 25-Year Study

The Healthiest "Super-Agers" Have One Thing in Common, According to a 25-Year Study

Memory is the glue of life. Without it, our focus softens, our experience of the world blurs, and our identities melt away. But as people age, their memory declines. Many billions of dollars have been...

27 Elo 202541min

Plain History: How the Transcontinental Railroads Built the Modern World

Plain History: How the Transcontinental Railroads Built the Modern World

Today’s pod is about the economic story of the moment. It’s about new technology that supporters claim will transform the U.S. economy, an infrastructure build-out unlike anything in living memory tha...

20 Elo 202555min

The Modern World Is Changing America’s Personality For the Worse

The Modern World Is Changing America’s Personality For the Worse

According to analysis by Financial Times writer John Burn-Murdoch, something extraordinary has happened to Americans’ personalities in the last decade. Longitudinal tests indicate that we’ve collectiv...

13 Elo 202547min

Will AI Usher In the End of Deep Thinking?

Will AI Usher In the End of Deep Thinking?

Last week, the Bureau of Economic Analysis published the latest GDP report. It contained a startling detail. Spending on artificial intelligence added more to the U.S. economy than consumer spending l...

6 Elo 202558min

The New Geography of Housing in America

The New Geography of Housing in America

Subscribe to Derek’s new Substack. In 1991, the median age of first-time homebuyers was 28. Now it’s 38, an all-time high. In 1981, the median age of all homebuyers was 36. Today, it’s 56—another all...

30 Heinä 202542min

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