As a reporter, columnist and book reviewer, I managed to sneak a fair amount of history into my work for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Seattle Times, and in my outside writing for Liberty magazine. Most of this was history from books, but on several pieces I consulted primary sources.

A number of these pieces concern World War II. “The Fight Over Scrap Steel to Japan” is about the run-up to war in the late 1930s. “Defending Henry Ford” is about a book that argues that Ford was a collaborator with the Nazis before the war. “Not Pearl Harbor,” which was written after the attacks on New York City’s twin towers and on the Pentagon in 2001, argues that those attacks do not compare with the attack on Pearl Harbor. “How the Swiss Survived” explains why the Swiss were the one country bordering on Nazi Germany that was never invaded. “Seize All West Coast Japs” and “FDR and the Japanese Internment” are about the wartime internment of Japanese Americans. “Defending Henry Ford” is about a book that argues that Ford was a collaborator with the Nazis. “The Nazi Economy” is about how “national socialism” worked. “Too Much World War II” is about the influence of the war on Hollywood movies and political discourse.

Several of the pieces are set in the Depression of the 1930s, starting with “What Caused the Depression?” “Our Famous Homeless Camp” is about Hooverville the shantytown on Seattle’s waterfront. “How Seattle Lost the Streetcars” is also set in the 1930s. “The Evergreen Nanny” and “Early Days at Morton” are set in the first two decades of the 20th century. ” “Back to the 1890s” is about my book, The Panic of 1893, and “Jack Metcalf, Greenbacker,” is about a 20th century politician who was thought to be a hard-money man but wasn’t. “Why We’re Rich” is about economic historian Deidre McCloskey’s unusual argument about the causes of the Industrial Revolution.