𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗
@charlescmann.bsky.social
Author of "1491, "1493," and, most recently, "The Wizard and the Prophet." Working, inefficiently, on another book.
The background image is pretty old by now, but I like the pig. The avatar photo is only a couple years old, though, so that's something.
The background image is pretty old by now, but I like the pig. The avatar photo is only a couple years old, though, so that's something.
Here’s a description from the publisher. And a preorder link: press.stripe.com/maintenance-...
November 20, 2025 at 5:55 PM
Here’s a description from the publisher. And a preorder link: press.stripe.com/maintenance-...
I hadn't known this--it looks like US divorce rates have been falling, slowly but steadily, and now are at roughly a 50-year low. (Source: www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...)
November 19, 2025 at 1:59 PM
I hadn't known this--it looks like US divorce rates have been falling, slowly but steadily, and now are at roughly a 50-year low. (Source: www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...)
As for those Father's Day doorstops... well, I might be a bit sensitive about that, because I suspect she'd put my own work in that category. I'll just say that one of her Harvard colleagues, Henry Louis Gates, is a big contributor to that genre, and we're all the richer for it.
November 18, 2025 at 4:24 PM
As for those Father's Day doorstops... well, I might be a bit sensitive about that, because I suspect she'd put my own work in that category. I'll just say that one of her Harvard colleagues, Henry Louis Gates, is a big contributor to that genre, and we're all the richer for it.
... lots of those "doorstop histories" she also disses DO give Americans tools for living in an pluralistic, multiracial, multiethnic democracy.
Does she really mean to dismiss people like Annette Gordon-Reid and Clint Smith and Ron Takaki and Drew Faust and Natalie Zeman Davis and so many others?
Does she really mean to dismiss people like Annette Gordon-Reid and Clint Smith and Ron Takaki and Drew Faust and Natalie Zeman Davis and so many others?
November 18, 2025 at 4:20 PM
... lots of those "doorstop histories" she also disses DO give Americans tools for living in an pluralistic, multiracial, multiethnic democracy.
Does she really mean to dismiss people like Annette Gordon-Reid and Clint Smith and Ron Takaki and Drew Faust and Natalie Zeman Davis and so many others?
Does she really mean to dismiss people like Annette Gordon-Reid and Clint Smith and Ron Takaki and Drew Faust and Natalie Zeman Davis and so many others?
This Jill Lepore interview is making some waves 'cuz she says, in effect, that woke nearly drove her from academia and she's ashamed she didn't speak up about its excesses. But this bit really startled me. a) the "forgotten people" work she disses produced great stuff that had a big impact and...
November 18, 2025 at 4:04 PM
This Jill Lepore interview is making some waves 'cuz she says, in effect, that woke nearly drove her from academia and she's ashamed she didn't speak up about its excesses. But this bit really startled me. a) the "forgotten people" work she disses produced great stuff that had a big impact and...
Two headlines, same day, same paper. Yikes.
November 18, 2025 at 3:15 PM
Two headlines, same day, same paper. Yikes.
Violent anti-mask protests, 1918 (by me). From www.thenewatlantis.com/publications...
November 17, 2025 at 4:59 PM
Violent anti-mask protests, 1918 (by me). From www.thenewatlantis.com/publications...
What to do? Unfortunately, whatever RFKJr is doing seems likely to end up attacking the very real successes of the public-health system while doing nothing about this kind of deep issue. 10/11
November 13, 2025 at 4:57 PM
What to do? Unfortunately, whatever RFKJr is doing seems likely to end up attacking the very real successes of the public-health system while doing nothing about this kind of deep issue. 10/11
Each alarm is placed on a patient by a specialist for an individual reason. But the collective result is that nurses become densensitized and even resentful of the alarms. Sometimes, the safety measures to protect patients end up making them less safe. 8/11
November 13, 2025 at 4:55 PM
Each alarm is placed on a patient by a specialist for an individual reason. But the collective result is that nurses become densensitized and even resentful of the alarms. Sometimes, the safety measures to protect patients end up making them less safe. 8/11
This network (to repeat) has been wildly successful. But as the original unitary vision was lost, it grew in disconnected fashion, creating institutional silos that relentlessly pursued their missions, each empire furiously expanding with little consideration of the others. 5/11
November 13, 2025 at 4:51 PM
This network (to repeat) has been wildly successful. But as the original unitary vision was lost, it grew in disconnected fashion, creating institutional silos that relentlessly pursued their missions, each empire furiously expanding with little consideration of the others. 5/11
The terms brings up images of white-coated doctors at hifalutin outfits like the CDC. They’re, yes, part of the public-health system—but only part. The system is is a massive, interlocking set of laws, standards, institutions, and technologies that undergirds much of our daily lives. 4/11
November 13, 2025 at 4:48 PM
The terms brings up images of white-coated doctors at hifalutin outfits like the CDC. They’re, yes, part of the public-health system—but only part. The system is is a massive, interlocking set of laws, standards, institutions, and technologies that undergirds much of our daily lives. 4/11
Lots of reasons. But one is that the system we actually have—the one envisioned by the late-19th-century anti-TB activists who founded today’s system—is quite different than the one typically evoked today by the words “public health.” 3/11
November 13, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Lots of reasons. But one is that the system we actually have—the one envisioned by the late-19th-century anti-TB activists who founded today’s system—is quite different than the one typically evoked today by the words “public health.” 3/11
—the first senior public-health official ever to campaign explicitly against the public-health establishment. (And how weird is that?) Why the dispute? How come a system that has delivered such obvious successes for so long is now a target of public fury? 2/11
November 13, 2025 at 4:44 PM
—the first senior public-health official ever to campaign explicitly against the public-health establishment. (And how weird is that?) Why the dispute? How come a system that has delivered such obvious successes for so long is now a target of public fury? 2/11
Public health has drawn controversy since it began ~150 years ago, but the disputes have only grown more heated since Covid. Even though we unquestionably live longer and healthier lives than our ancestors, there’s so much discontent that we now have RFKJr.— 1/11
November 13, 2025 at 4:41 PM
Public health has drawn controversy since it began ~150 years ago, but the disputes have only grown more heated since Covid. Even though we unquestionably live longer and healthier lives than our ancestors, there’s so much discontent that we now have RFKJr.— 1/11
Via a pal in tech, w/ the comment:
www.cartoonshateher.com/p/dont-prove...
"She's correct. Stereotypically 'male' toxic workplaces are more likely to involve obvious physical stuff, and hence are easier for HR to swoop down on than the toxic stuff in stereotypically 'female' workplaces...."
www.cartoonshateher.com/p/dont-prove...
"She's correct. Stereotypically 'male' toxic workplaces are more likely to involve obvious physical stuff, and hence are easier for HR to swoop down on than the toxic stuff in stereotypically 'female' workplaces...."
November 10, 2025 at 2:11 PM
Via a pal in tech, w/ the comment:
www.cartoonshateher.com/p/dont-prove...
"She's correct. Stereotypically 'male' toxic workplaces are more likely to involve obvious physical stuff, and hence are easier for HR to swoop down on than the toxic stuff in stereotypically 'female' workplaces...."
www.cartoonshateher.com/p/dont-prove...
"She's correct. Stereotypically 'male' toxic workplaces are more likely to involve obvious physical stuff, and hence are easier for HR to swoop down on than the toxic stuff in stereotypically 'female' workplaces...."
For Indigenous nations on the Klamath--the Yurok, Karuk, Hupa, Klamath, Shasta, and others--salmon are a huge deal--life itself. The destruction was crushing. But in the long run Cheney's move backfired. It galvanized resistance that led last year to the removal of four giant salmon-killing dams.
November 8, 2025 at 5:25 PM
For Indigenous nations on the Klamath--the Yurok, Karuk, Hupa, Klamath, Shasta, and others--salmon are a huge deal--life itself. The destruction was crushing. But in the long run Cheney's move backfired. It galvanized resistance that led last year to the removal of four giant salmon-killing dams.
Summer 2002 was as hot as summer 2001. With irrigation taking the water, river levels fell. The water got hot, perfect conditions for gill rot, a fungal disease. Salmon, packed into low water, transmitted the disease amongst themselves. It was the worst salmon die off ever recorded--a nightmare.
November 8, 2025 at 5:22 PM
Summer 2002 was as hot as summer 2001. With irrigation taking the water, river levels fell. The water got hot, perfect conditions for gill rot, a fungal disease. Salmon, packed into low water, transmitted the disease amongst themselves. It was the worst salmon die off ever recorded--a nightmare.
Cheney secretly got Interior Sec'y Dale Norton to appoint a new scientific panel that claimed the fish didn't need the water. Fierce criticisms by the National Marine Fisheries Service team in the area were edited out of the report; the lead biologist resigned in protest.
November 8, 2025 at 5:13 PM
Cheney secretly got Interior Sec'y Dale Norton to appoint a new scientific panel that claimed the fish didn't need the water. Fierce criticisms by the National Marine Fisheries Service team in the area were edited out of the report; the lead biologist resigned in protest.
Just remembering that Dick Cheney secretly intervened in a dispute over the Klamath River in 2001--and caused the biggest fish die-off in US history, with ~77,000 fully grown adult salmon piled on the banks of the river.
November 8, 2025 at 5:05 PM
Just remembering that Dick Cheney secretly intervened in a dispute over the Klamath River in 2001--and caused the biggest fish die-off in US history, with ~77,000 fully grown adult salmon piled on the banks of the river.
This charming if hagiographic article about Cormac McCarthy's insanely huge personal library and the overwhelmed scholars trying to go through it is full of unexpectedly funny evidence of the man's omnivorous curiosity. /v @meganabbott.bsky.social www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture...
November 7, 2025 at 5:05 PM
This charming if hagiographic article about Cormac McCarthy's insanely huge personal library and the overwhelmed scholars trying to go through it is full of unexpectedly funny evidence of the man's omnivorous curiosity. /v @meganabbott.bsky.social www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture...
Economists have boatloads of evidence that rent control damages cities, and hence Mamdani's plans for it are disastrous. But there's also an argument (with some data) that rent control defuses the political resistance to new housing--it defangs NIMBYism (at least somewhat).
November 4, 2025 at 9:59 PM
Economists have boatloads of evidence that rent control damages cities, and hence Mamdani's plans for it are disastrous. But there's also an argument (with some data) that rent control defuses the political resistance to new housing--it defangs NIMBYism (at least somewhat).
In return for the $80B, gov’t gets “participation interest” in Westinghouse, giving it 20% of “any cash distributions in excess of $17.5B made by Westinghouse.” If estimated value of Westinghouse is >$30B by '29, gov’t can force BAM/Cameco to have an IPO for Westinghouse. 2/n
November 3, 2025 at 7:14 PM
In return for the $80B, gov’t gets “participation interest” in Westinghouse, giving it 20% of “any cash distributions in excess of $17.5B made by Westinghouse.” If estimated value of Westinghouse is >$30B by '29, gov’t can force BAM/Cameco to have an IPO for Westinghouse. 2/n
Yikes, this is bad.
October 31, 2025 at 8:43 PM
Yikes, this is bad.
Uh, wut. Do I have this right? You have sent me email to inform me that unless I specifically say "no", you will use AI to take my work and turn it into a comic?
October 31, 2025 at 8:40 PM
Uh, wut. Do I have this right? You have sent me email to inform me that unless I specifically say "no", you will use AI to take my work and turn it into a comic?
Donald Trump, 9/26/25 vs. RFKJr., 10/29/25.
October 30, 2025 at 2:02 PM
Donald Trump, 9/26/25 vs. RFKJr., 10/29/25.