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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · 26d

Annals of Anti-Monopoly: I will be in DC on 25 September to give a talk at George Mason University. The public is invited. Teaser: why was George Washington furious at the reactionary politics of his fellow Virginian George Mason? Was Washington on to something? Is it time to…cancel George Mason?

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Jun 17

Annals of anti-monopoly: This just dropped today. When did Americans start seriously worrying about media concentration? Hint: in the 1930s. How did this debate shape media coverage of the Second World War?

How Media Concentration in the Age of Radio Prefigured Today’s Big Tech Debate - ProMarket

In the 1930s, staffers at the newly established Federal Communications Commission devised a novel rationale for limiting network power in radio, telephony, and the press. While much has changed since ...

www.promarket.org

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · May 25

Annals of anti-monopoly: Here is my review (critical yet appreciative) of Dan Schiller’s monumental history of 20th c. U.S. telecommunications policy — forty years in the making. Schiller is particularly suggestive on the FCC in the 1930s, a neglected topic, and on the efficacy of consent decrees.

Crossed Wires: The Conflicted History of U.S. Telecommunications, from the Post Office to the Internet. By Dan Schiller

How should we write the history of communications? In Crossed Wires, Dan Schiller provides us with one answer to this question. In a sprawling, often perce

academic.oup.com

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Jan 25

Announcing an open search for a position in Columbia’s Ph. D. program in communications

“We are particularly interested in candidates pursuing pioneering research agendas in: Science, Technology, and Society (STS); media law and policy; media history; global media….”

apply.interfolio.com/162364

Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio

apply.interfolio.com

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Jan 2

Annals of anti-monopoly: “…the safer course…decentralization of power, [but] the uniform power to regulate these enterprises [eg railroads], if they partake in the least of a monopoly character, must be equally extensive with the territory they occupy.” Sterne, _Constitutional History_ (1882).

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Dec 19

Annals of anti-monopoly: historian Shane Hamilton explains how shifts in the U.S. food distribution networks led to the blocked Kroger-Albertsons merger.

Shane Hamilton @shamilto.bsky.social · Dec 19

A little piece with Errol Schweizer (former VP of Whole Foods) on the historical significance of the blocked Kroger-Albertsons merger grocerynerd.substack.com/p/grocery-up...

Grocery Update #39: The High Cost of Cheap Food. And The Historic Halting Of A Grocery Merger.

Also: An Autumn Apple Smackdown. Because We Love Apples.

grocerynerd.substack.com

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Dec 19

Annals of anti-monopoly:

“Plutocracy is its own kind of dictatorship. When companies larger, wealthier and more powerful than most world governments threaten individual liberty with coercive private taxation and regulation, it threatens our way of life."

Jonathan Kanter, antitrust head. DOJ, 2024

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Dec 18

Thanks! Ellsworth’s son was patent commissioner in the 1830s. He backed Samuel Morse’s telegraph patent against British rivals. Morse fell in love with his daughter Anne and later covered the story up. Anne’s mother gave us the Biblical quote “What Hath God Wrought” that Dan Howe used as his title.

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Dec 18

Agreed! Trust all is well in “the other place” — and the real world! :)

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Dec 18

His fellow Virginian? I am confused?

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Dec 18

The Kennedy assassination was the first historical event I remembered as well. My mother crying in front of the radio; the horses on TV during the funeral

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Dec 17

Annals of anti-monopoly…..in the news….

www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020...

Perspective | The Founders never intended the U.S. Postal Service to be managed like a business

The post office is supposed to serve the public good — not worry about profit.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Dec 7

Annals of anti-monopoly: The meaning of monopoly has shifted over time. Pete Roady’s _Contest over National Security_ shows how in the 1930s and 1940s the related catch phrase “ national security” was stripped of its association with domestic reform.

wwwww.hup.harvard.edu/books/97806742…

https://wwwww.hup.harvard.edu/books/97806742…

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Nov 21

Annals of anti-monopoly: how did lawmaker John Sherman (whose name is today linked with the famous federal anti-monopoly law) try to reign in “Big Tech”? What forgotten legislation did he craft? And…why did it matter? I explored these topics in a recent piece for HNN.

www.hnn.us/article/the-...

The Other Sherman’s March

How the younger brother of the famous general set out to destroy the scourge of monopoly power.

www.hnn.us

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Sep 14

Annals of anti-monopoly: my piece on how 20th c. telephone publicists shaped the history books, and set up a major center for the study of U.S. history at Harvard. Can expertise be mobilized to promote the political agenda of Big Tech? History says yes.

www.promarket.org/2024/09/13/h...

How Tech Giants Make History - ProMarket

Richard R. John recounts how in the twentieth century the once-mighty Bell System, whose descendants include today’s Verizon and AT&T, waged a powerful decades-long public relations campaign, includin...

www.promarket.org

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Sep 14

Can I help Beth? Let me know

Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Jun 4

Annals of anti-monopoly: I join Kathryn Brownell and Jeannette Estruth in Washington, D.C., on 6 June for a congressional briefing on federal media policy. My topic is federal regulation of the mail, the telegraph, telephone, and radio. Details below.

www.historians.org/news-and-adv...

Congressional Briefings

The AHA’s Congressional Briefings series seeks to provide Congressional staff members, journalists, and other interested parties with the historical background to topics of current concern.

www.historians.org

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Apr 22

Anti-Monopoly Roundtable Today— featuring Tim Wu, Bill Novak, Kate Andrias, Suresh Naidu, and…myself. Click below for the registration information — with the Zoom link. We will be discussing Crane and Novak, ed., _Antimonopoly and American Democracy_. events.columbia.edu/cal/event/even…

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Feb 9

Agreed

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Jan 13

Annals of anti-monopoly: “[Brandeis] wanted government action not only to destroy bigness but affirmatively to protect smallness—even, if necessary, at expense of competition.” Schlesinger, _Politics of Upheaval_p. 388.

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Jan 7

David Donald developed his thesis in _Liberty and Union_, a stimulating, if neglected, survey of 19th c US public life that revealed the strengths AND the weaknesses of the justly criticized “party period” model, a legacy of Cold War-era assumptions about the essential coherence of US public life.

Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Jan 7

Rachel Sheldon’s fine new coauthored essay in the _JAH_ is helping 19th c. US historians to move beyond the “party period” synthesis (championed among others by my mentor David Donald). Party competition for Donald helped to promote unity (along with faith in the Constitution and popular oratory).

Rachel Shelden @rachelshelden.bsky.social · Jan 6

🗃️ 2) Some of the most exciting work on the 19th c is in the history of statebuilding, incl by @gauthamrao.bsky.social @rrjohnr.bsky.social @arielron.bsky.social, that often fit awkwardly w/ the party system model. A new understanding of 19th c parties opens up ways to rethink that relationship 6/

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Jan 7

Rachel Sheldon’s fine new coauthored essay in the _JAH_ is helping 19th c. US historians to move beyond the “party period” synthesis (championed among others by my mentor David Donald). Party competition for Donald helped to promote unity (along with faith in the Constitution and popular oratory).

Rachel Shelden @rachelshelden.bsky.social · Jan 6

🗃️ 2) Some of the most exciting work on the 19th c is in the history of statebuilding, incl by @gauthamrao.bsky.social @rrjohnr.bsky.social @arielron.bsky.social, that often fit awkwardly w/ the party system model. A new understanding of 19th c parties opens up ways to rethink that relationship 6/

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Dec 30

Very sad — a wonderful colleague and a nice guy

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Dec 13

Ben: 8-10 is pretty normal for me. But I straddle two Ph.D. granting programs — so that might be a bit on the high end.

Benjamin L. Carp 🎏 @bencarp.bsky.social · Dec 13

People who teach (history or similar) in PhD-granting departments: how many student committees (orals, dissertation proposal, or dissertation) do you typically sit in a year?

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Nov 27

Annals of anti-monopoly: can the history of the remarkably successful regulation (municipal, state, and federal) of the Bell System provide insight into the Graham-Warren proposal for the regulation of Big Tech? Hint: yes. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

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