San Francisco’s emergence as the most important city on the West Coast in the 19th century was simply attributable to fortunate geography. The San Francisco Bay Area’s evolution into the most important region in the world for technology innovation and investments in the late 20th century owes to a... Read More

It is an election year in America in the 21st century. Given that Donald Trump is the incumbent, one might have predicted that things would get interesting. What would not have been predicted is that the election has nothing to do with why 2020 has already been one for the history books. Like... Read More

I have stated a number of times over the past two months that this COVID-19-induced lifestyle feels like stepping back in time to my childhood. Nights and weekends, normally filled during the Spring by kids’ sports and countless other obligations, have given way to activities such as family walks... Read More

In Western’s 2012 Q2 letter we discussed a few historic natural disasters (notably, the 1900 Galveston hurricane) that acted as “black swan” events to alter the course of history around their geographic location. One question posed in the letter revolved around whether the 2011 Fukushima nuclear... Read More

In this day and age, the world does not lack for sensational headlines. Even in The Wall Street Journal or Financial Times, headlines in 2019 read like something out of the National Enquirer. Stories of salaciousness, intrigue and flat-out zaniness are a daily occurrence. Interesting recent... Read More