Political Economy

Early in the afternoon last Thursday (12/17) New York City's 20^th Precinct responded to a triple homicide on Amsterdam Avenue between 83^rd and 84^th Streets. The details were grizzly: A gunman armed with a .380 caliber pistol shot and killed three family-related men in a third floor apartment. The gunman himself died, adding a fourth body to the crime scene. He apparently tried to escape out of an apartment window but fell three stories to his death in a backyard alleyway. The New York Times headline read, "Four Men Dead in West Side Shootings."

Last Thursday (12/3) President Barack Obama hosted a job summit in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. He convened business and labor leaders to brainstorm recession-ending, job-creating strategies to recover the ailing American economy. Of the many ideas discussed few if any addressed the needs of the poor. Without a comprehensive plan to get the burgeoning underclass back on payroll no strategies will reverse the current downward spiral. The problem is simple: Men and women across America are losing their jobs. The unemployment rate in America reached a twenty-six year high in October, peaking at 10.2% of the American population. In November the rate dropped to 10%-a sign of hope, says the President. Many, quite frankly, do not share in his audacity. Americans have been losing jobs throughout the Great Recession, and there have been no sustained efforts to reverse the trend.

While at a lecture today my professor said something that hit home. In discussing the relationship between historical events and the people who experience them, she argued that landmark events don’t change history on their own. Perception, she explained, is equally important. To understand how people in the past perceived the events that they experienced is to look deeply into the minds and customs of historical actors—to understand the culture that both created and explained the event. For those who practice cultural history, as I do, to uncover the story that people of the past told about the worlds that they witnessed is the goal of every endeavor.