History articles feature analysis of historical context in relation to censorship, policy, technology, media, economics, and social life.
All Brownstone Institute articles on the topic of history are translated into multiple languages.
The Journal of the American Medical Association said of alcohol prohibition in 1920: “Most of us are convinced that it is one of the most beneficent acts ever passed by a legislature.”
The Respected Scientists Who Pushed for Alcohol Prohibition in 1920 Read More »
If they tried to generate panic based on next to nothing in 2005-06, people should have asked at the time, what will they do when something real comes along? It took 15 years but now we know.
“Half the Population Could Die!”: The Great Disease Panic of 2005-06 Read More »
The great turn from ancient political and economic structures into more modern ones was not only about property rights, commercial freedoms, and the participation of ever greater waves of people in public life. There was also an implicit epidemiological deal to which we agreed, what Sunetra Gupta describes as an endogenous social contract.
A Caste System Threatens the West Read More »
Newspaper reports at the time offer no record of widespread public event cancellations much less forced closures. Sometimes college and high school football games were postponed due to illness absences. Some conventions were cancelled by organizers. But that is all.
They Considered and Rejected Pandemic Closures in 1957 Read More »
The North Sentinelese are a very real reminder of how cruelly bankrupt the run-and-hide strategy is as a broad form of virus mitiga
The Lessons of North Sentinel Island: The Ill-Health of Isolation Read More »
The Great Barrington Declaration changed everything. The negative press backfired. The scientists risked everything to write this Declaration
A Short History of the Great Barrington Declaration Read More »
We are still struggling to get back what we lost in this dreadful year, and the party in power now looks back not with horror at the results of political panic but rather with a sense of opportunity for all that might be possible in the years ahead.
An Inside Look at the Lockdown Orders from March 2020 Read More »
Premonition is great at characterizing lockdowner views and thus revealing what’s wrong with them, however inadvertently.
With Premonition, Michael Lewis Gets It Backwards Read More »
It’s long past time for the pandemic central planners to level with the American people about what they were attempting and why. They did not explain then, and they have yet to explain to this day.
The Purpose of Social Distancing Was Not to Wait for a Vaccine Read More »
The Achilles heel of contemporary liberalism has always been its attitude toward free economies. 55% of liberals embrace a misrepresented definition of capitalism
Is this the Final Corruption of Liberalism? Read More »
“I had hoped that the fires of liberty, burning within the hearts of the American public, would have been strong enough to stop this kind of tyranny from being visited upon us. I would have predicted massive pushback, but it did not happen for a good part of the year. People were mired in fear and confusion. It felt like wartime, with a population traumatized by shock and awe.” ~ Jeffrey Tucker
Lessons Taught by the Lockdowns of 2020 Read More »
