Anti-Social Studies

The national debt just hit $40 trillion. If the U.S. decided to pay that off at a cool $1 billion a year, we'd be debt-free in about 40,000 years — so, cool, normal, not concerning at all.

This week we're digging into how we actually got here. Turns out America has basically never not been in debt — we owed money before we even finished writing the Constitution. We'll trace the whole wild ride: how Alexander Hamilton picked a fight with half the founding fathers over who should pay for the Revolutionary War, how Andrew Jackson briefly got the debt down to zero (and immediately triggered an economic crash), how FDR and a British economist named Keynes convinced the country that borrowing money could actually be a strategy, and how the debt has ballooned, shrunk, and ballooned again through World War II, the Reagan years, the Clinton surplus, and the 2008 financial crisis.

Spoiler: debt itself isn't the villain of this story. What we borrowed for, how fast the economy was growing, and who ended up footing the bill — that's where things get interesting (and a little infuriating). By the end, you'll never hear a headline about the national debt the same way again.

If this type of history is your thing, this is basically the appetizer version of what's covered — in a lot more depth — in my self-paced U.S. History courses or in the individual curriculum units if you're a teacher who wants classroom-ready materials.

???? antisocialstudies.org
???? Courses: emily-glankler-s-school.teachable.com
???? Teacher curriculum PDFs: antisocialstudies.org/category/curriculum
???? @antisocstudies (IG) · @antisocialstudies (TikTok)

Welcome to a special episode I've created for my Historical Travel Society members who are traveling to Egypt!

Click here for my History of Egypt TIMELINE to follow along

Henry George was a guy with two first names and a Progressive dream to level the growing inequality through a land value tax. Mr. Beat (of YouTube fame) teaches me everything I never knew I needed to know...

This week I force Seema Rao (@artlust) to hear me explain the incredible pop art / indigenous design elements of the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, because SOMEONE besides me should read my graduate thesis... Follow Seema for all things aesthetic and art history on TikTok!

This week Seema Rao (@artlust) is explaining to me why they entire freakin' world wanted porcelain so badly they conquered whole continents for a nice tea set. Follow Seema for all things aesthetic and art history on TikTok!