They should have died out when the lightbulb was invented. Instead they’re a $10 billion industry. What does it mean that we still want tiny fires inside our homes?
Whaling was, in the words of one scholar, “early capitalism unleashed on the high seas.” How did the U.S. come to dominate the whale market? Why did whale hunting die out here — and continue to grow elsewhere? And is that whale vomit in your perfume? (Part 1 of “Everything You Never Knew About Whaling.”)
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