History can be a harsh mirror for America. Before the Civil War our most valuable industries—cotton and whaling—fostered the human misery of slavery and sent men out on floating rendering plants for months or years at a time to hunt down and butcher some of the most graceful mammals that ever lived. We slaughtered the peoples we found on this continent and followed their Trail of Tears west. We displaced the Mexicans, broke the bodies of countless immigrant workers to build the Erie Canal, the Transcontinental Railroad, and the Hoover Dam. Our first skyscrapers were said to average one Read More