Saturdays are all about longform links on Abnormal Returns. You can check out last week’s linkfest including a look at the state of Generation Z.
Book excerpts
- What does the decline of the British Empire teach us about America? From Rick Atkinson's "“The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777." (washingtonpost.com)
- An excerpt from "Range: How Generalists Triumph in a Specialised World" by David Epstein. (theguardian.com)
- An excerpt from Jeff Gordinier's new book, "Hungry: Eating, Road-Tripping, and Risking It All with the Greatest Chef in the World." (esquire.com)
- Why didn't Moe Berg kill Werner Heisenberg when he had the chance? An excerpt from "The Bastard Bridgade: The True Story of the Renegade Scientists and Spies Who Sabotaged the Nazi Atomic Bomb" by Sam Kean. (deadspin.com)
Finance
- Prior to the financial crisis, Goldman Sachs ($GS) wanted nothing to do with Main Street. Now they are all in. What changed? (kc-roi.com)
- How Wheaton, Illinois became a hotbed for the ETF industry. (wsj.com)
- McKinsey & Co. is coming under all sorts of scrutiny for its investment arm. (institutionalinvestor.com)
Places
- Are midsize cities, like Winston-Salem, NC doomed to stagnation? (nytimes.com)
- Why the Deep South is becoming the destination for other states' waste. (ozy.com)
- Florida is on the front lines of invasive species. (smithsonianmag.com)
Demographics
- The age structure of global populations is shifting in an unprecedented way, toward a smaller young-age cohort and a larger old-age cohort. (americas.vanguard.com)
- On the rise of the only child. (washingtonpost.com)
Food
- The biggest product launch this Autumn may be....an apple! (story.californiasunday.com)
- New Coke didn't fail because of the taste. It failed due to nostalgia. (motherjones.com)
Strength
- It is well documented that humans can exert "superhuman" levels of strength during periods of extreme stress. What is up with that? (espn.com)
- What should we make of Americans decreasing grip strength? (nautil.us)
Longform
- Professor Raj Chetty has documented low social mobility in the US. Now he wants to change it. (theatlantic.com)
- How AbbVie ($ABBV) effectively keeps competitors to Humira off the market. (fortune.com)
- Streaming games are the next big tech battle. (tomtunguz.com)
- Apollo 11 was a marvel in software engineering. (wsj.com)
- How the art market became intertwined with finance. (thesmartset.com)
- Why didn't we see the widespread introduction of the bicycle sooner? (rootsofprogress.org)
- How the Notre Dame fire nearly caused the structure's complete collapse. (nytimes.com)