Katherine C. Epstein, an editorial board member of American Purpose, is associate professor of history at Rutgers University-Camden and author of Torpedo: Inventing the Military-Industrial Complex in the United States and Great Britain (2014). She received the ACLS Burkhardt Fellowship and was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Her research focuses on government secrecy, defense contracting, intellectual property, and the political economy of power projection.
America’s Fiscal Frontier, Part III: The Monetary Soul of Empire
It was once a cornerstone of American ideals to make a better life for one’s children. Now the kids are on their own.
America’s Fiscal Frontier, Part II: The Peace Dividend
The 20th century accustomed Americans to having their cake and eating it, too.
America’s Fiscal Frontier, Part I: The Foundations of Our Budgetary Dysfunction
The U.S. has always relied on expansion to avoid political and economic decay. Kate Epstein on the historical roots of this all-American impulse.
A Dispatch from the Exhausted Majority
The Woke Left and MAGA Right don’t understand how their intensity jars with people who just want a quiet life—which is most people. Part two in a series.
When Partisans Cry Wolf
By imbuing the normal stuff of liberal-democratic politics with existential stakes, crisis rhetoric makes compromise with “the enemy” impossible. Part one in a series.
Politics and Certitude
In a political culture obsessed with who’s right and who’s wrong, a few fundamentals on thinking things through are in order.
October 25, 2021: Harold James discusses his book, "The War of Words: A Glossary of Globalization." Moderated by Katherine Epstein
Join us on October 25, 2021 to hear Harold James discuss his new book, The War of Words: A Glossary of Globalization (2021). Katherine Epstein will moderate. Harold James is the Claude and Lore Kelly Professor in European Studies and professor of history and international affairs at Princeton University. In
The Purple Pill: Charlottesville in Retrospect and Prospect
On the anniversary of the racially inspired murder, a history professor assesses the relationship between her profession and society’s most divisive cultural debates.
