From clothes and hairstyles to fashion accessories, humans use a range of stylistic elements to express themselves. We present new methods to use images as a high-frequency, granular source for the analysis of cultural change. We systematically exploit data from more than 14 million high school yearbook pictures of graduating US seniors to analyze persistence and change in style.

Did overseas slave-holding by Britons accelerate the Industrial Revolution? We provide theory and evidence on the contribution of slave wealth to Britain's growth prior to 1835. We compare areas of Britain with high and low exposure to the colonial plantation economy, using granular data on wealth from compensation records.

We study the ability of a firm to elicit repeated effort from workers by creating a "rat race" of hierarchical status-based incentives. We examine performance using data on over 5,000 German air force pilots during World War II. Pilots' effort is hard to monitor; motivation is key to success. Fighter pilot performance increases markedly as they approach eligibility for a medal before falling off upon receipt of the award.

Mass media often persuades; it can also expand the machinery of repression. We study radio network expansion and political persecution in Stalin's Soviet Union, in the decades leading up to the 'Great Terror' of 1937-38. Greater radio coverage systematically intensified political repression.

Do occupational dynasties reflect the intergenerational transmission of skills or nepotism? We use detailed data on the fighting record of the 18th century Royal Navy to show that sons of navy officers are markedly more successful than non-legacies, outperforming in terms of enemy captures by a third.

What does it take to live a meaningful life? We exploit a unique corpus of over 1,300 life narratives of older Americans collected by a team of writers during the 1930s. We combine detailed human readings with large language models (LLMs) to extract systematic information on critical junctures, sources of meaning, and overall life satisfaction.

Can weakened religiosity lead to the rise of totalitarianism? The Nazi Party set itself up as a political religion, emphasizing redemption, sacrifice, rituals, and communal spirit. This had a major impact on its success: Where the Christian Church only had shallow roots, the Nazis received higher electoral support and saw more party entry.