Welcome to my website! I'm an economist, historian, and journalist with a long track record of writing and speaking about economic and business issues. My interests are wide-ranging, but I specialize in trade and economics, international finance and financial regulation, transportation, and energy. I've had the pleasure of speaking on these subjects to both academic and non-academic audiences in many countries. My book The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger, received many awards and has been widely translated. The Economist Guide to Financial Markets, another book I wrote, has also been translated into many languages, and will soon be published in its sixth edition.

My latest book is The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America. The book explores the fascinating history of the chain store wars, when an incredibly diverse range of advocates, from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to Franklin Roosevelt, supported a government crack-down on chains because their efficiency and low prices threatened the survival of independent retailers. The Wall Street Journal selected The Great A&P as one of the ten best nonfiction books of 2011.

The links on the left will bring you to my biography, to information about my books, to some of my recent articles, and to my contact information.