If we’re going to create more manufacturing jobs in our country, we ought to look at businesses that have successfully created jobs that don't involve silicon or staring at a screen all day. America's craft brewers provide a constructive example, since breweries are manufacturers whose products are…
If we’re going to create more manufacturing jobs in our country, we ought to look at businesses that have successfully created jobs that don't involve silicon or staring at a screen all day. America's craft brewers provide a constructive example, since breweries are manufacturers whose products are…
Imagine that your local grocery store is suddenly owned by the state. All the store's products and prices are set by central planners; who control when deliveries are made and which goods are sent to what stores. These stores routinely stock out-of-date products no one wants and refuse to carry new…
After the workday, far too many of us come home and turn on our televisions or our computers. But some of us indulge in more traditional, non-electronic hobbies, and these hobbies have rituals, which seem mystifying to the outsider. For example, the now-defunct North American popular culture trivia…
The world of beer, like the parallel worlds of wine and spirits, has become more crowded and interesting in recent years. In 2010, for example, the District of Columbia had three brew pubs, all part of larger chains. Five years later, there are five brew pubs and five breweries, rapidly growing…
There aren’t many things that tie together Belgian monks, lederhosen-wearing Germans, and American crowds packing the infield at a stock car race, but the common thread between these disparate groups is beer. Beer is the world’s most interesting beverage because of the endless local differences in…
Ernest Hemingway drank far more than most people, and probably more than was good for him. He loved liquor so much that when he was in his late 50s, and a diabetic, his doctors tried to ration his alcohol consumption—to a liter of wine a day.
Study the history of the American Red Cross and you’ll find that the most dramatic change in that organization’s history was between 1910 and 1920, when it was transformed from a relatively small organization into the lumbering giant it is today. Until now, this inflection point in Red Cross…
One almost feels like shedding a tear for rich people these days. They are regularly pilloried by President Obama and his acolytes on editorial pages and talk shows as selfish greedheads who need to be taxed, and taxed again, as punishment for their wealth. Malcolm Forbes loved to show how his…
Gin has been with us for over 400 years, praised by one generation, excoriated by another. But even the most knowledgeable drinkers remain largely unaware of how gin was transformed from a concoction bubbling in the flasks of medieval alchemists into a spirit beloved by martini lovers around the…
Study the history of philanthropy in America and you quickly discover that books you would assume exist don’t. Want a history of the Ford Foundation? There isn’t one, although there are histories of some Ford programs and of Henry Ford’s personal giving. Nor are there histories of the MacArthur…
There are many reasons why people go to bars: to find a date, cheer on a team, or simply to get stewed. But the best reason to be in bars is that you’re with friends. The best bars—free of televisions and background music, with an agreeable burger, good local draft beers, and well-informed…
Give Smart
America’s Medicis
Immortality
The Blue Pages
A Pint of Plain
For most of the 20th century, the big foundations operated on the premise that the best donors were those who would say little or nothing about how their wealth should be used. A magazine editor once impiously argued that the writers he liked were those who turned in their articles and then were…
Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba
Giving Well, Doing Good
The Billionaire Who Wasn't
The Foundation
Who Really Cares
Hershey