“The invention of American industrialism, the creation of urban life, changing gender relations, public-health reform, suburbia and its hamburger-loving teens, better living through plastics, and the financialization of the economy: The straw was there for all these things—rolled out of extrusion machines, dispensed, pushed through lids, bent, dropped into the abyss. You can learn a lot about this country, and the dilemmas of contemporary capitalism, by taking a straw-eyed view.” Alexis Madrigal: A history of modern capitalism from the perspective of the straw. Seriously.