I’m a scholar -- the Richard S. Strong Scholar at the Laffer Center -- who’s interested in our economic history and the theory that went into making it, for good or ill. On this column, I write about how history can help illuminate the economic challenges we face today, and how very often historical sources do validate free-market economics. My new books are (with Benton Howser) “Free Money: Bitcoin and the American Monetary Tradition” and “Taxes Have Consequences: An Income Tax History of the United States” (with Arthur B. Laffer and Jeanne Cairns Sinquefield). I've been writing at Forbes.com since 2010.