The rumors are true: I’ve joined Substack.
For those of you new to my work, I’m best-known for my bestselling biography The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes, which won the 2021 Hillman Book Prize, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in biography, was longlisted for the Cundill History Prize, and is currently a finalist for the Arthur Ross Book Award (we’ll find out in a few weeks, it’s very dramatic as my wife’s book is also a finalist).
I spent ten years with HuffPost, where I covered economic policy and politics, but these days I’m advising the Omidyar Network and the Hewlett Foundation as I work on my next book for Random House. The topic of that book is for the moment, a secret, but as soon as we hammer out a few details it will be a subject for a post here.
I joined Substack for the obvious reason: I’m a writer, and this is a platform for writing that allows people to pay me for that writing. I’ve contributed to quite a few places over the past year (The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The American Prospect, The New Republic, et cetera). In The Long Run will serve as a central hub for that work, along with much else that can only be accessed here.
By subscribing, you’ll have access to posts on the economy, history, American politics, and the occasional photo of my very good dog, Pepper. I’ve been on Twitter for a long time — too long, let’s face it — and plan to make this publication the primary home on the information superhighway for my thinking, a hybrid between short form social media-style commentary and the longer columns and weekend reads that I specialized in at HuffPost. Once, long ago, this format was referred to as “blogging.”
Paid subscribers will have access to exclusive behind-the-scenes material — updates on book research, Q&A sessions and other special events. This is a conventional Substack publication. No splashy advance, just a 90 / 10 revenue split between me and the company.
Thanks for reading. I’m looking forward to writing for you.
And here is a photo of Pepper.