Emerging here briefly to share what I find to be a mind-boggling factoid from today's writing so far (and to disappear again into writing mode just as quickly 😊 )

🚨New international Finance and Society Conference happening in Copenhagen in September 11-12! Keynotes by Christian Borch (University of Copenhagen), Fabian Muniesa (Mines Paris – PSL), and @vanessahistory.bsky.social (Yale University) 💸🗺️

So proud of the work @emiliafavuzzi.bsky.social is doing. Such an important field 😍

Not on here ATM really but re-upping this in light of today's news (which are better than nothing but not what many had called for): www.nybooks.com/online/2024/... www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solu...

Read about noblesse without oblige and the effects of secrecy on politics and society in tax havens, out from behind the paywall:

“Imagine the chief executives of America’s top universities and richest corporations…issued a public statement that spoke clearly and loudly about the dangers…” Those who speak out will at least put themselves on the right side of history. www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/w...

"Offshore finance" is conceived very broadly including historically, do share and check it out!

When I worked in UK academia I recall hearing of a Japanese man who was baffled at how Britain had decided to run its universities like firms. “Why? Your universities are excellent and your firms are terrible.”

if you thought archives were problematic, wait till you see no archives

Over at the Socio-Economic Review, we're planning a special issue on offshore finance! Historical contributions are very welcome. CfP here: academic.oup.com/ser/pages/cf.... Please share and spread the word! Excited to be working with @ebharrington.bsky.social and Kimberly Kay-Hoang on this!

You wouldn't know from FoxNews gold coin ads and other rightwing goldbuggery, but there's actually a material economy behind gold and the gold trade. It's often shady and dirty, and, you guessed it, tied to tax havens, today and in the past. Wrote about it here: www.nybooks.com/online/2025/...

Apparently, allowing Americans to file their tax returns for free is a bad thing. A big gift to the Big Tax lobby and a big middle finger to Americans.

You wouldn't know from FoxNews gold coin ads and other rightwing goldbuggery, but there's actually a material economy behind gold and the gold trade. It's often shady and dirty, and, you guessed it, tied to tax havens, today and in the past. Wrote about it here: www.nybooks.com/online/2025/...

BTW, perhaps nothing would enrage Trump more than US trade partners brushing the tariffs off and saying we‘ll just find other trade partners, thank you very much.

Leopard: I will eat your face Bank analysts: Our baseline assumes no face-eating Leopard: Chomp chomp chomp

Over at the Socio-Economic Review, we're planning a special issue on offshore finance! Historical contributions are very welcome. CfP here: academic.oup.com/ser/pages/cf.... Please share and spread the word! Excited to be working with @ebharrington.bsky.social and Kimberly Kay-Hoang on this!

Some news: A few hours after I filed the draft to this story, CNN laid me off. As part of a massive restructuring/changes across the network, my role as climate writer was among the 200 that got cut last week. It’s disappointing, but I’ll be okay. My last day is on Feb 21. A thread.🧵 1/

Some political graffiti I spotted on my stroll

With all the news about Elon Musk and the AfD, I guess it’s time to repost my starter pack: “Experts on German Rightwing Extremism” go.bsky.app/DnB9hMz

We’re cooked

me

Interview with @princetonupress.bsky.social on Erased... including why, in the end, I wasn't actually able to write this history ‘without men’... and the broader and contemporary relevance of the story... press.princeton.edu/ideas/patric...

It is amazing how well this has worked out so far, by the numbers and also just in terms of what you see at the river crossings and in midtown. No greater proof of how cowed/dorky/incompetent New York Democrats are that none of them can even find it in themselves to take any credit for it.

It's UK publication day of Erased: A History of International Thought Without Men. 🥳 Look out for book talks at SOAS (tomorrow), York, LSE, Chicago, Trento, Oxford, Durham... press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

This story in Wired was my first big intro to crypto and what it was enabling. So very worth reading!

Shoutout to Doug Emhoff!

The AHA Council vetoed the Scholasticide Resolution. Time to cancel your membership. www.historians.org/news/busines...

"G.M. monitored and sold people’s precise geolocation data and driver behavior information, sometimes as often as every three seconds,” Lina M. Khan, chair of the F.T.C. “With this action, the F.T.C. is safeguarding Americans’ privacy and protecting people from unchecked surveillance.”

Got a new essay in @dissentmag.bsky.social on secrecy havens. The culture of impunity that secrecy fosters has profoundly damaging effects on social&political fabrics especially in places that were turned into tax havens in the context of empire/decolonization www.dissentmagazine.org/article/nobl...

How are senior scholars responding to the collapsing job market:

Very cool to see "Erased: A History of International Thought Without Men" one of Foreign Policy's "Most Anticipated Books of 2025". Amazing company: Mishra, Roper, Grandin... foreignpolicy.com/2024/12/31/2... @princetonupress.bsky.social @politicsoxford.bsky.social @somervillecollege.bsky.social

For those who could not be in the room: 428 in favor of the Resolution against #scholasticide in Gaza 88 against 4 abstentions #AHA25

After almost a decade of thinking, researching and writing... this came in the post today. 🤓 🥂

Fascinating piece by @vanessahistory.bsky.social in The Nation on legal fictions around sovereignty that allow for offshoring of asylum seekers, free ports, and tax shelters. www.transcend.org/tms/2024/12/...

Anglo-Saxons plagiarized a Roman coin — and it's full of typos | Live Science www.livescience.com/archaeology/...

I wrote about Atossa Araxia Abrahamian's book The Hidden Globe for @thenation.com. Fav part: showing how closely entwined privilege and precarity are in that world. It's a terrific book, both smart and entertaining, and y'all should read it! www.thenation.com/article/worl...

First, the owner of the LA Times spiked the editorial board’s endorsement of Harris. Now he has gone full MAGA

I put together a starter pack of people who work on political economy histories, and intersections between history and political economy. Let me know if you would like to be added or have suggestions on people to add.

Stealing this from @janklownesbituk! (who are not on here yet). Could not be more excited about my Viking (US) and Allen Lane (UK) editorial dream team 😊

The Plunder of Black America has a cover and a pub date: 2/25/25! Why has the Black-white racial wealth gap been so wide for so long? This book tells the story of racial economic inequality through several Black families yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300... #racialwealthgap #PlunderofBlackAmerica

Going to be spending more time on here than X, methinks.

I wrote about the opaque world of shipping for @nybooks. The industry that moves more than 80% of global trade has massive regulatory, environmental, and labor law issues, all facilitated by tax havens and secrecy jurisdictions www.nybooks.com/online/2024/...

Historians - if you have students interested grad study in History, please tell them about our History MA program here at Rutgers-Camden near Philadelphia. Here's a link to a brochure, followed by a thread of 4 ways I think our program is great: 1/5 history.camden.rutgers.edu/files/Histor...

If you don’t know NZD’s own extraordinary history, read this www.universityaffairs.ca/features/fea...

California is paving the way for sectoral standards. This puts in place a set of wage floors for health care sector that will affect nearly half a million workers. This is the type of approach I outlined here: econfip.org/policy-brief...