Empire of Wealth: The Story of America’s Economic Power
World history is replete with stories of empires built and maintained by military domination, through force of arms and political power. The United States has been different—it has dominated the world through mostly peaceful means, especially through the continued creation and distribution of staggering wealth.
This course explores how America created that wealth, in amounts unprecedented by any measure, and how wealth, and the capacity to create more of it, have been the source of America’s global influence.

Dr. Harry Ballan
Harry Ballan is Senior Director of the Tikvah Fund and Founding Dean of both the Tikvah Online Academy and the Abraham Lincoln Teachers Fellowship. Dr. Ballan holds a BA, MA, MPhil, and PhD from Yale University and a JD from Columbia Law School. He clerked for Chief Judge Wilfred Feinberg of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and was for many years a Partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, a leading international law firm where he is currently Senior Counsel. He has taught at several leading universities on subjects ranging from law and intellectual history to neuroscience, and was Dean of Touro Law School before joining Tikvah.
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