Iconic authors
Themes
Bibliography of the day
The Ounce of Prevention and the Pound of Proof, Why Governments Struggle to Spend Now for Savings Later
From cholera-era drainage reports to the debates over pensions and health visitors, reformers argued again and again that prevention pays. They rarely won on the numbers. The savings were invisible, the costs were plain, and success could make the powers behind prevention look less necessary.
Twenty Million Pounds for the Masters, How British Emancipation Chose Its Injured Party
In ending colonial slavery, Britain admitted that freedom came with a debt, then paid twenty million pounds to the slaveholders. Against it, a rival ledger insisted that the true creditor was the one who had worked a lifetime without wages.
