About Ashton Merck

I am a historian who studies the intersection of law, business, and public policy. I wrote my dissertation on self-regulation in food safety, so my work also draws on ideas from science and technology studies as well as an interdisciplinary literature on risk regulation. I am currently the Associate Editor for H-Business. I have been working with Paula de la Cruz-Fernandez about doing interviews for a business history channel on New Books Network.

NBN Episodes hosted by Ashton:

Caley Horan, "Insurance Era: Risk, Governance, and the Privatization of Security in Postwar America" (U Chicago Press, 2021)

September 21, 2021

Insurance Era

Caley Horan
Hosted by Ashton Merck

Actuarial thinking is everywhere in contemporary America, an often unnoticed byproduct of the postwar insurance industry’s political and economic infl…