We had another unseasonably warm day today (and more to come tomorrow), and while keeping to the shade/indoors I listened to talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was a great talk by Benjamin Leyden on the complicated effects of "Sherlocking" on third-party firms at the Toulouse School of Economics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpYJ3yrsZzA

Next was an interesting talk by Georges Affaki on the codification of international commercial law at the QMUL School of Law https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY3s_ULF4-s

Next was "Talking Union" by Judith Stepan-Norris and Maurice Zeitlin. The story of unionization at Ford's River Rouge plant, and its subsequent place as the center of labor activism in the post WW2 US, has been deeply analyzed in many books. Here, however, after a brief overview we get first hand, verbatim accounts of those tumultuous decades, revealing a depth to labor action and worker experiences that's unmatched in other volumes. These accounts are interwoven, although importantly not vetted for accuracy. Still, this is an essential book for understanding how unions and companies work. Highly recommend https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p064890

Last was "Steamboats and the Rise of the Cotton Kingdom" by Robert Gudmestad. This book details the transformative nature of the steamboat in US history, particularly its dominance in transportation and commerce in the antebellum decades until it was supplanted by the railroad. Issues around technological safety (or lack thereof) and post-hoc attempts to deal with these problems were instructive, as was the economic analyses vis-a-vis railroads. I wish there were more on the underlying technological developments, and I think the usage of steamboats for Indian removal was not nearly critical enough. Overall, as a history of a commonly forgotten but critical technology in its time, this is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in US, transportation, or technology history. Highly recommend https://lsupress.org/9780807138397/steamboats-and-the-rise-of-the-cotton-kingdom/