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Roundup Top Ten for March 27, 2020

We’ve Never Been Here Before

by Adam Tooze

There are historical analogies to this kind of collective shutdown, but they are not attractive.

Women Also Know Washington

by Lindsay Chervinsky

The last decade has witnessed a noticeable uptick of works on Washington authored by women, with more to come in the pipeline.

The History of Asian American Discrimination in Public Health

by Stanley Thangaraj

The popularity of various pseudo-scientific, ad hoc religious, and other problematic discourses about the coronavirus are jeopardizing national and global health. 

What Our Contagion Fables Are Really About

by Jill Lepore

In the literature of pestilence, the greatest threat isn’t the loss of human life but the loss of what makes us human.

Dismantling the Federal Bureaucracy Has Left Us All Vulnerable to COVID-19

by Teal Arcadi and Casey Eilbert

Decades of deriding bureaucrats and cuts have undermined government capacity to serve us when we need it most.

Babe Ruth's New York @ 100

by Jonathan Goldman

When Babe Ruth started hitting home runs, the US started to change.

Hospice of the Creative Class

by Alex Sayf Cummings

No event has so starkly revealed the brutal inequalities of contemporary capitalism as the coronavirus pandemic.

It Doesn’t Have to Be a War

by Tim Barker

The Trump administration appears ready to invoke the Defense Production Act to speed manufacture of essential goods like face masks. What if we didn’t have to resort to the analog of war?

Joking in the Time of Pandemic: The 1889–92 Flu and 2020 COVID-19

by Kristin Brig

As we see with COVID-19, the darkest periods in history expose the best—and worst—of humanity.

Assimilationists of a Feather

by Elliot Friar and Travis LaCouter

If the history of gay liberation has taught us anything, it’s that assimilationism is one hell of a drug.