Walter Scheidel

It now feels like an almost annual tradition for historians to spend the day after the Economics Nobel is announced criticizing the award winners’ lack of historical knowledge or analytical finesse. While I sympathize with quite a few of these exercises on their narrow intellectual merits, it’s also worth pointing out that, to a very large extent, these economists are simply occupying academic territory that historians have voluntarily abandoned. For two decades now, historians have almost given up on writing comparative or global histories on major economic or institutional phenomena. As a result, when they critique the economists who pursue these projects for missing this detail or overlooking that source, one cannot help but wonder if they themselves could have done any better—in fact, if they could have written *any* book of comparable scope. To be sure, one can still criticize something without being able to produce a viable replacement oneself, but in such circumstances the criticism does seem a bit cheaper. Not to mention, if the historian profession voluntarily gives up so much of its ability to explain large-scale economic, political, or institutional phenomena, then small wonder it is rapidly declining in influence, visibility, and draw.

Errani & Vavassori d. Iga Swiatek & Casper Ruud 6-3 5-7 10-6 SARA & ANDREA WIN BACK TO BACK US OPEN MIXED DOUBLES TITLES. The only true mixed doubles team in the draw. Defending champions who got in as wildcards. Mission accomplished. Statement made. 🇮🇹❤️