The examination of the theory and history of financial crisis in Europe and the United States is the subject matter of two important works by Kindle Berger (Kindle Herger, 1978, and Kindle Berger & Lafarge, 1982). In his first work, Kindle Berger (1978), has provided us with a remarkable account of European and American financial history from 1720 to 1975. The second hook (Kindle Berger & Lafar...

Questions about ownership permeate the history of computing. Some of their most common manifestations involve the ownership of individual machines, from mainframe leases to personal computer purchases. Some of their most unusual manifestations involve national debates on the scope of intellectual property (IP) rights. Connecting these questions are stories about the uses and limits of IP that h...

Historians of science have participated actively in debates over American science policy in the post-World War II period in a variety of ways, but their impact has been more to elucidate general concepts than to effect specific policy changes. Personal experiences, in the case of the debate over global warming, have demonstrated both the value and the limits of such involvement for the making o...

This article explores a disconcerting phenomenon. In recent years, in writing on the subject of assisted suicide, several bioethicists have made extraordinary historical claims. The history of Western moral theories that exhibit disapproval of all forms of suicide is well known. Nevertheless, the bioethicists have claimed that some of Europe's most prominent early modern moral philosophers neve...

This article revisits a disconcerting phenomenon. The history of prominent 17th and 18th century moral theorists who exhibited disapproval of all forms of suicide is well known. Nevertheless, there are many bioethicists who continue to claim that either these moral theorists never actually opposed suicide, or that they never believed in the inalienable right to life and liberty that is an impor...

DAVID F. MUSTO is professor of psychiatry at the Child Study Center and professor of the history of medicine at Yale University. He earned his medical degree at the University of Washington and received his master's In the history of science and medicine from Yale. Mus to began studying the history of drug and alcohol use in the U.S. when he worked at the National Institute of Mental Health in ...