The best Economic History newsletters

Adam Tooze's newsletter curates and comments on daily links across economics, geopolitics and economic history, from tariffs and inflation to the AI boom's effect on the US current account. Each issue pairs current macro and market items with historical and intellectual-history threads and an art image.

An economic historian writes essays on South Africa's economic past, present and future, drawing on his own archival research on the Cape Colony. Recent issues examine the role of academic conferences, AI in research and universities, and a language model's critique of one of his own published tables.

Long-form essays on pre-colonial African history, drawing on primary sources such as scribal colophons and explorers' accounts. Readers get evidence-based arguments that challenge common assumptions about African economies, religion and global connections, with deeper parts behind a Patreon paywall.

Anton Howes writes long-form history of innovation, focusing on the causes of the British Industrial Revolution, with multi-part series on topics like salt trade, Scottish scientific achievement, and Tudor labour and trade policy. Readers get deeply researched narratives tracing how ideas, economic institutions and archives shaped technological progress.

CAPASIA is an academic newsletter from a European research project on how Asian trade, commodities and knowledge shaped global capitalism. Issues offer long-form historical essays on early modern Dutch East India Company trade, spices, cargo lists and Maluku, plus project news.

Economist Brad DeLong posts commentary and crossposts on economic history, political economy, and current topics such as AI spending and gender history. Readers get an opinionated academic perspective that links to and reacts to other writers' work.

Long-form historical essays on overlooked episodes, from Bentham's Russian inspection house to a British gossip columnist's resistance to appeasement and the Hanseatic League's trade wars. The writing is literate and narrative-driven, offering context and wit that a reader would not easily find in a standard news digest.

A heterodox macroeconomics newsletter that mixes personal tributes to recently deceased economists with technically detailed commentary on monetary policy history, Nobel prize analysis, and myths like petrodollar recycling. Readers get an opinionated, expert take on central banking and the ongoing debate over impoundment and executive power.

Horizonomics Research publishes long-form analysis at the intersection of economics, politics and technology, especially green energy, with examples like Dutch nitrogen policy, wave energy interviews and economic history of the Industrial Revolution. Readers get in-depth, reported and referenced pieces that explain policy trade-offs and historical causes.

A personal blog-style newsletter from a small farmstead exploring agroecology, critiques of capitalism in food systems, and Vermont agricultural history. Readers get reflective essays, book reviews and recommendations of podcasts and articles on regenerative food systems.

Perfectit is a newsletter that argues data and trust, not technology, decide whether organisations get real value from AI, with strategic guidance for boards and executives. It also publishes occasional historical narratives on how past industrial revolutions reshaped work.