Ariel Ron
@arielron.bsky.social
ag, energy, econ & political history @ SMU // director Clements Center for Southwest Studies // web: arielron.net // book: Grassroots Leviathan (Johns Hopkins UP 2020) http://bit.ly/2CjHK1G // review: http://bit.ly/3xiKlja
The Dallas Morning News printed my letter about the TX A&M regents' bad & wasteful rule change. FWIW I think that, in addition to academic freedom, administrative bloat & overreach should be a regular theme in attacking this stuff. It's got a lot of rhetorical advantages and happens to also be true.
November 12, 2025 at 11:55 PM
The Dallas Morning News printed my letter about the TX A&M regents' bad & wasteful rule change. FWIW I think that, in addition to academic freedom, administrative bloat & overreach should be a regular theme in attacking this stuff. It's got a lot of rhetorical advantages and happens to also be true.
Special forum on the 25th anniversary of Richard Bensel's Political Economy of American Industrialization, coming soon in Reviews of American History, w/contributions from me, Rosanne Currarino, Noam Maggor, Nicolas Barreyre, and Emma Teitelman, and a response from Bensel.
November 12, 2025 at 9:52 PM
Special forum on the 25th anniversary of Richard Bensel's Political Economy of American Industrialization, coming soon in Reviews of American History, w/contributions from me, Rosanne Currarino, Noam Maggor, Nicolas Barreyre, and Emma Teitelman, and a response from Bensel.
Apparently the Texas A&M board of regents is attempting to micromanage teaching to the level of absurdity. They intend to subject any and all teaching on race and gender to pre-clearance and to impose a vague rule about syllabi. Just adding to the administrative bloat.
www.tamus.edu/regents/wp-c...
www.tamus.edu/regents/wp-c...
November 10, 2025 at 10:16 PM
Apparently the Texas A&M board of regents is attempting to micromanage teaching to the level of absurdity. They intend to subject any and all teaching on race and gender to pre-clearance and to impose a vague rule about syllabi. Just adding to the administrative bloat.
www.tamus.edu/regents/wp-c...
www.tamus.edu/regents/wp-c...
Phenomenal partisan hackery on the USDA's front page.
October 27, 2025 at 4:05 PM
Phenomenal partisan hackery on the USDA's front page.
The thing about beef, unlike pork and chicken, is that production isn't dominated by a handful of oligopolistic giants. It's a bunch of independents who're very committed to ranching as a whole way of life and they're politically engaged.
October 21, 2025 at 5:06 PM
The thing about beef, unlike pork and chicken, is that production isn't dominated by a handful of oligopolistic giants. It's a bunch of independents who're very committed to ranching as a whole way of life and they're politically engaged.
Van Gogh's "Pollard Birches" shows how trees are cutoff at about head height in order to encourage fresh shoots too high for deer to browse. Plains people might have done similar to prevent buffalo from browsing on shoots they wished to preserve for horses.
October 18, 2025 at 3:41 PM
Van Gogh's "Pollard Birches" shows how trees are cutoff at about head height in order to encourage fresh shoots too high for deer to browse. Plains people might have done similar to prevent buffalo from browsing on shoots they wished to preserve for horses.
As I suspected, 19c settler Americans didn't know what they were seeing. They saw trees as things to be cleared for farm making, not as a scarce resource to be husbanded. The largest share of biomass in this sankey is almost certainly mostly home heating with abundant supplies of chopped trees.
October 18, 2025 at 3:27 PM
As I suspected, 19c settler Americans didn't know what they were seeing. They saw trees as things to be cleared for farm making, not as a scarce resource to be husbanded. The largest share of biomass in this sankey is almost certainly mostly home heating with abundant supplies of chopped trees.
Indigenous nations on the Great Plains probably practiced some kind of active tree management, esp. of cottonwoods, bc these were essential for surviving winter by providing fuelwood & bark as food for their horses. This suggests they practiced pollarding, a technique for encouraging new growth. 1/
October 18, 2025 at 3:27 PM
Indigenous nations on the Great Plains probably practiced some kind of active tree management, esp. of cottonwoods, bc these were essential for surviving winter by providing fuelwood & bark as food for their horses. This suggests they practiced pollarding, a technique for encouraging new growth. 1/
Yes, to a large degree "foraging" was very literally about forage in the main. This is Henry Halleck, one of the Union's top strategists, in the manual/textbook he published just before the Civil War.
September 12, 2025 at 9:45 PM
Yes, to a large degree "foraging" was very literally about forage in the main. This is Henry Halleck, one of the Union's top strategists, in the manual/textbook he published just before the Civil War.
September 12, 2025 at 7:36 PM
Graphic summary of the "tyranny of the wagon equation" for a Civil War army of 100,000 men + 20,000 cavalry & artillery horses + X wagon mules as a function of days' march from a base. The equine supply factor is total daily forage ÷ food (for humans). By day 4 or 5 it's out of control.
September 12, 2025 at 7:31 PM
Graphic summary of the "tyranny of the wagon equation" for a Civil War army of 100,000 men + 20,000 cavalry & artillery horses + X wagon mules as a function of days' march from a base. The equine supply factor is total daily forage ÷ food (for humans). By day 4 or 5 it's out of control.
From Irwin’s trade policy history. What is the point of producing a chart like this, completely ignoring services, which now account for ~30% of US exports?
August 19, 2025 at 7:57 PM
From Irwin’s trade policy history. What is the point of producing a chart like this, completely ignoring services, which now account for ~30% of US exports?
This take from Irwin’s trade policy history book has not aged well
August 19, 2025 at 6:57 PM
This take from Irwin’s trade policy history book has not aged well
hipster Civil War lettering
August 18, 2025 at 2:53 PM
hipster Civil War lettering
Key part of Rowland's deposition, in which he claims to have endorsed a half-million-dollar check (in today's terms) so casually he didn't even look at the name of the bank, which he at first claims was in New York and later in New Jersey.
August 15, 2025 at 4:58 PM
Key part of Rowland's deposition, in which he claims to have endorsed a half-million-dollar check (in today's terms) so casually he didn't even look at the name of the bank, which he at first claims was in New York and later in New Jersey.
Two forthcoming books I'm excited for
July 31, 2025 at 8:50 PM
Two forthcoming books I'm excited for
If anyone knows more about how letter pressing techniques changed in the 19c, please lmk
www.ice.org.uk/news-views-i...
www.ice.org.uk/news-views-i...
July 25, 2025 at 5:41 PM
If anyone knows more about how letter pressing techniques changed in the 19c, please lmk
www.ice.org.uk/news-views-i...
www.ice.org.uk/news-views-i...
A funny thing about Civil War army bureaucracy is that they broke out the really good handwriting for generals but couldn’t bother with mere captains.
July 23, 2025 at 3:48 PM
A funny thing about Civil War army bureaucracy is that they broke out the really good handwriting for generals but couldn’t bother with mere captains.
In effect this shows that the word "hay" increasingly modified the words "trade" and "business" after the 1880s. Interestingly, this was when the National Hay Association was founded, which reflected the hay trade's large scale and probably also generated more discussion of it in print.
July 19, 2025 at 3:06 AM
In effect this shows that the word "hay" increasingly modified the words "trade" and "business" after the 1880s. Interestingly, this was when the National Hay Association was founded, which reflected the hay trade's large scale and probably also generated more discussion of it in print.
Here's the finding. Not much evidence for the CW as important but an interesting increase around the turn of the century. But, these frequencies could just reflect more frequent use of the words trade and business in general, so I normalized by the respective terms...
July 19, 2025 at 3:06 AM
Here's the finding. Not much evidence for the CW as important but an interesting increase around the turn of the century. But, these frequencies could just reflect more frequent use of the words trade and business in general, so I normalized by the respective terms...
astonishing attrition of horses in the Civil War
from an amazing recent Phd dissertation, "The Horses with No Names," by Frank Robert Boynton
from an amazing recent Phd dissertation, "The Horses with No Names," by Frank Robert Boynton
July 17, 2025 at 9:26 PM
astonishing attrition of horses in the Civil War
from an amazing recent Phd dissertation, "The Horses with No Names," by Frank Robert Boynton
from an amazing recent Phd dissertation, "The Horses with No Names," by Frank Robert Boynton