Virginia's Newsletter

From the Archives: Joel Mokyr on the Industrial Enlightenment

The great economic historian Joel Mokyr has won the Nobel Prize. Here I reprint a column on his book The Gifts of Athena.

Oct 13 • 

Virginia Postrel

19

1

From the Archives: How Job-Killing Technologies Liberated Women

Progress is more than space adventures.

Oct 3 • 

Virginia Postrel

28

5

September 2025

What Brings You to DC?

Varieties of abundance, reading Middlemarch, too many mosquitoes

Sep 9 • 

Virginia Postrel

22

3

AI Slop and Human Play

Computers can win at chess and Go, but how about a rap battle?

Sep 8 • 

Virginia Postrel

19

4

August 2025

From the Archives: The Faux Populism of Trumpified Architecture

What looks “civic” depends on experience, not architectural theory. In Los Angeles, where I live, traditional civic buildings are not classical.

Aug 29 • 

Virginia Postrel

20

9

July 2025

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Reading good books and an occasional lousy one. Plus lots of podcasts.

Jul 7 • 

Virginia Postrel

18

3

April 2025

Wanted: Manly Jobs for Manly Men

Or at least for manly men who don't have their acts together.

Apr 26 • 

Virginia Postrel

56

2

Reposting: Waiting for Trump Fever to Break

With hopes for progress and abundance after Trump.

Apr 8 • 

Virginia Postrel

38

7

Waiting for the Fever to Break

With hopes for progress and abundance after Trump.

Apr 8 • 

Virginia Postrel

30

22

March 2025

February 2025

More AI Testing

An equine analysis and a laborious quotation search

Feb 26 • 

Virginia Postrel

12

3

Experimenting with ChatGPT

Still not a replacement for what I do but a potential time saver and getting better fast.

Feb 6 • 

Virginia Postrel

9

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