Big day! 🚨 My work with Cristina Bodea on [central bank independence](www.cambridge.org/core/journal...) just got cited at the [Supreme Court](www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25...)

Central banks are meant to be independent. But what happens when the rule of law erodes? New @goodauth.bsky.social post by Cristina Bodea & @arpie71.bsky.social breaks down why central bank independence relies not just on legal design—but on democratic institutions that protect it.

Can central banks and sound money survive a collapse in the rule of law? Read our latest on the importance of sound money. goodauthority.org/news/can-cen...

We’ve just released new Stata (github.com/history-lab/...) and R (github.com/history-lab/...) packages that make it easy to pull History Lab’s text and metadata directly into your favorite statistical tools. Learn more about what we do at lab.history.columbia.edu!

A couple of weeks ago, I started writing something up on how with the "reciprocal" tariffs, we would end up back in nearly the same place as before, except victory would be declared and the tariff schedule would be touted as the greatest thing ever, despite not changing.

So Trump calls me up and he's like "tariffs are off" and I'm like:

In 1951, the US petitioned the GATT to suspend its concessions with Czechoslovakia. It argued that "because we can not reasonably anticipate an improvement of our commerce with Czechoslovakia so long as the present state of relations between us exists" (history.state.gov/historicaldo...)

I will never complain about the review process again. (From Ian Stewart's Visions of Infinity)

I should have read the fine print when the U.S. replace MFN with Permanent* Normal^ Trade** Relations^^. * Timeframe not guaranteed ^ HA, Your mileage may vary ** Yeah, this one still works, for now ^^ Quality of relations not specified

Trade wars are accelerating the decline of international economic governance. But instead of collapsing, global trade institutions are lurching forward in a zombie-like state. What happens next? Julia Gray describes our coming era of half-dead internationalism

So Trump calls me up and he's like "tariffs are off" and I'm like:

Version 2 of my dropbox command is out. This tool locates a user’s Dropbox folder automatically and adds an option to search a secondary drive before moving to the primary one. Installation instructions at github.com/arpie71/drop.... (Thanks to @kevinhorourke.bsky.social for suggesting changes)

Canada has challenged Trump's tariffs at the WTO. Clearly Trump won't care since the US can block any ruling (by appealing "into the void"), but Canada is also making a statement about the need to play by the rules. www.wto.org/english/news...

I've been thinking about this song a lot: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Az5d... I'm waiting for a Democratic politician to attempt a "decency" moment rather than a "gotcha" moment.

Any parallels? "Selling Swamps Exchange..Leading Issues Tumble as Wall Street Assails the New Tariff"

I'm thinking of starting a "today in (recent) history" feature, reminding everyone of all Trump's idiot moves during the one major crisis of his first administration. But then I already missed February 27, 2020, when he said "it's like a miracle, it will disappear"

Applications for Archives as Data are open until the end of March! 📅 Decisions will be announced shortly after. Don’t miss this opportunity—submit your application today! lab.history.columbia.edu/content/work... #ArchivesAsData #DigitalHistory #OpenData

Non-coders can also explore and download thousands of docs from the CIA, NATO, State Dept., etc. on our new website: lab.history.columbia.edu

📢Into US Foreign Policy or text analysis? This is for you! History Lab has released the full text+metadata from our FOIArchive on Hugging Face. 🔍 Perfect for exploring diplomatic history, NLP, & document analysis Repost to spread the word! 🗞️📡 #USForeignPolicy #DigitalHistory #TextAnalysis #OpenData

One of the fun things about being a data nerd is finding data you forgot you collected. The annoying thing is remembering that you did not properly annotate and source the data since the collection was not finished.

Is history repeating? In the 1930s, the US rewrote trade rules with the RTAA, locking in dominance via the principal-supplier rule—later enshrined in GATT. The indomitable Joanne Gowa & I studied how this shaped trade. Now, with tariffs & industrial policy, the US is at it again. Buckle up.

Cristina Bodea and I have released our CBI data at github.com/arpie71/CBId.... The data cover 144 countries for the years 1970 through 2020. The component scores for the index are also included. #CBIdata

Applications are now open for Archives as Data. A FREE @NEHgov workshop @Columbia June 2-13, 2025. It's a crash course for historians and archivists in analyzing digital & digitized texts with an intro to AI for advanced beginners: lab.history.columbia.edu/content/work... #twitterstorians