PBS's The Dust Bowl arrives at a propitious moment. Superstorm Sandy recently flooded, pounded, or otherwise disrupted every state East of the Mississippi, but the massive dust storms of the 1930s were by far our nation’s greatest environmental disaster...

2012

Oct

HISTORY CHANNEL PRESENTS NARROW VIEW OF YESTERDAY'S MOGULS By David Sicilia

Americans seem to never tire of the exploits of our "captains of industry" or "robber barons." The problem with The Men Who Built America is that it never poses or even hints at this very intriguing question: Which were they?

2012

Aug

BUSINESS IS BIG AT 2012 RNC — JUST NOT BIG BUSINESS By David Sicilia

TVWW's resident business historian shares unexpected insights gleaned from an evening of convention viewing, illustrating how themes are lost when networks cut coverage...

2012

Jun

'DALLAS': BLACK GOLD THEN, BLACK GOLD NOW By David Sicilia

At first, the idea of a retread about the oil business in our age of hybrid vehicles and e-commerce seemed anachronistic to me. But if the Iraq war and four-dollars-a-gallon gasoline taught us anything, it’s that now more than ever, oil is black gold...

2012

May

IT'S HARD TO BUY WHAT AMC'S 'THE PITCH' IS SELLING By David Sicilia

Some professions seem accessible to amateurs — the less we know about it, the more we think we can do it just as well as the so-called experts. Nothing in AMC's The Pitch suggests otherwise...

2012

Apr

COSTCO CUNNING: CNBC EXAMINES THE RETAIL GIANT By David Sicilia

We know Costco charges membership dues and sells goods off pallets on concrete floors under cheap lighting. We know the portions are large. And we assume all of this means the prices are low.

2012

Jan

SWIMMING WITH SHARKS IN THE GREAT RECESSION By David Sicilia

Sometimes a TV show -- even a reality TV show -- can break the bonds of its premise. Shark Tank, which returns to ABC Friday, Jan. 20 at 8 p.m. ET, had a pretty good premise to begin with. The season premiere, though, serves up a couple of engrossing surprises...

2011

Oct

TWO EXPERIMENTS: PROHIBITION, AND ITS HISTORY ON SCREEN By David Sicilia

History is complicated. No one has done more to bring "serious" history to television than Ken Burns. In his latest nonfiction miniseries, Prohibition, he and co-producers Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein again marshal a small army of academics, writers, and researchers to explore a key epoch in US history -- the nation's nearly 14-year-long experiment in outlawing booze.

2011

May

HBO'S 'TOO BIG TO FAIL': TO THE FINANCIAL PRECIPICE... OR, REDEEMING HANK PAULSON By David Sicilia

[In which our resident TVWW business historian and professor takes a very informed view of HBO's telemovie about the financial crisis, and pronounces it complex yet invaluable. "Watch Too Big to Fail more than once," he concludes. "You'll need to, and it's worth it"... -- DB]

2011

May

ADVICE FOR ABC'S 'SECRET MILLIONAIRE': MORE CASH, LESS BLUBBERING By David Sicilia

When I saw the trailer for ABC's Secret Millionaire, which premieres Sunday night at 8 ET, I immediately thought of John Beresford Tipton...an industrialist as shadowy as James Bond's foes, who, through a stolid intermediary, "Michael Anthony" (played by Marvin Miller), handed over a check for $1 million to an unwitting stranger...

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David Sicilia

David Sicilia is a business historian and commentator at the University of Maryland, where he tries to convince business students that history matters and history students that business matters (newest course: MoneyLand: Business in American Culture). He's written books about Alan Greenspan's image, American entrepreneurs, and the evolution of the U.S. corporation, among other things. He has been a talking head, with body attached, on NPR, CNBC, CNN Financial News, Bloomberg Financial Television, DR-1 Danish Public Television, and NHK Television Japan.

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