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The image of the cover comes from ThriftBooks. There many different images for the book cover. David W. Bebbington’s Patterns in History  is one of those academic books that wears its ambition lightly. In fewer than 250 pages, it manages to cover what feels like thousands of years of historical thought without feeling like a rushed tour. The objective for Bebbington? To trace the different ways people have made sense of history—from ancient myth to modern postmodernism—and sh

The Great Depression was not just another downturn; it was a defining economic catastrophe of the twentieth century. Scholars still debate its causes, offering explanations that range from monetary contraction to structural weaknesses in banking and trade. Monetary economists stress the Federal Reserve’s contraction of the money supply in the early 1930s. Keynesians point to weak aggregate demand and call for government spending as the remedy. Still others highlight agricultu

Photograph taken by Moffett Studio. There is no year of when the photograph was taken but it is currently in the repository of the...

Grain built LaSalle County and the American Midwest. After the Civil War, the fields near the Illinois and Michigan Canal didn’t just...

"In the month of September, The order came through, To abandon the Line, That was west of Depue." 1 — Ted Swanson The Interurban electric...

Presidential Portrait painted by Gilbert Stuart in 1797 from the White House Historical Association George Washington, the first...