The past offers tools for understanding our present circumstances. And, I believe, history can guide us in navigating the future, for making the choices that are necessary to create a fair and sustainable economy that supports the well-being of all.
During my lifetime, American political culture has been distinguished by a pervasive belief that individual freedom is best guaranteed by freedom of the market. Over the course of the last forty years, the collective solutions that once nurtured the American middle class 鈥� including labor unions along with government and corporate-sponsored social provisions 鈥� drew increasing criticism for allegedly impeding the dynamic individualism of American capitalism. Government withdrew from social protection and provision. De-regulation and privatization swept across the domestic policy landscape. As a result, inequality increased. And the well-being of American households was yoked ever more tightly to increasingly unregulated financial markets. These ideas, policies, and outcomes — often labeled 鈥渘eoliberalism鈥� by scholars — account, in part, for both the insurgency of Bernie Sanders and the victory of Donald Trump.
I advance critical histories of capitalism with my scholarship, teaching, editoral work, publically-engaged writings, and through curatorial practice. In 2019, the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at Parsons School of Design exhibited a site-specific installation of the , which grew out of my teaching collaboration with the artist collective FICTILIS at Eugene Lang College. I advised the Museum of the City of New York on their , which won an Annual Excellence in Exhibition Award from the American Alliance of Museums in 2018. I’ve served as a and a consultant to documentary films. My writings for public audiences have been published in , , , and . My media appearances include , , , and , while my work has been featured in outlets including , , , , , , , and
One of my favorite aspects of academic life is lending my support to other scholars and writers. I am fortunate to do as an advisor to MA and PhD candidates (in history, politics, sociology, and economics), a member of the Editorial Board of , a co-editor of the book series published by Columbia University Press, and a founding co-editor of the journal , published by University of Pennsylvania Press.
Over the years, my work has received funding support from (among others) , the (Princeton, NJ), the (New York, NY).
At present, I direct the at the New School for Social Research, which I co-founded with Dean Will Milberg, professor of economics, in 2014.
Degrees Held
BA, Princeton University, 1997
PhD, Yale University, 2007
Recent Publications
Wealth Over Work: The Origins of Venture Capital, The Return of Inequality, and the Decline of Innovation (manuscript-in-progress)
(Harvard University Press, 2011): winner of the Vincent DeSantis Prize for the Best Book on the Gilded Age and Progressive Era
Selected Other Writings
“‘Keep Something for the Risk-Takers’: How the Democrats Rebuilt Structural Racism and Hastened the Great Polarization, 1964-1987,” in ed. Joseph E. Stiglitz and Rudiger von Armin, The Great Polarization: Economics, Institutions, and Policies in the Age of Inequality (forthcoming, Columbia University Press)
鈥溾�� Capitalism: A Journal of History and Economics vol 1, no. 1 (Fall 2019)
鈥淲丑补迟 Was The Great Bull Market?: Value, Valuation, and Financial History鈥� in ed. Sven Beckert and Christine Desan, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018)
,” Dissent (January 22, 2018)
“,” Washington Post (October 31, 2017)
鈥� Dissent (April 18, 2017)
鈥�,鈥� Museum of the City of New York, November 2016
鈥�,鈥� Public Seminar, April 17, 2014
鈥�,鈥� Public Seminar, April 9, 2014
“Solving the 鈥楧ebt Question鈥�,鈥� New Labor Forum vol. 22 no. 1 (Spring 2013), co-authored with Louis Hyman
鈥溾�楾he Free and Open People鈥檚 Market鈥�: Political Ideology and Retail Brokerage at the New York Stock Exchange, 1913-1933,鈥� Journal of American History vol. 96 no. 1 (June 2009): 44-71.
Research Interests
History of capitalism, 20th century American history, financial history, labor history, neoliberalism, conservatism, consumer culture, women’s and gender history, race and capitalism, art history and material culture
Awards And Honors
New Arizona Fellow, New America, 2019-2020
Member, 51黑料爆料网历史事件 for Advanced Studies, Princeton, NJ, 2019-2020
Faculty Research Grant, Provost’s Office, The New School, 2019-2020
Civic Liberal Arts Grant, Eugene Lang College for the Liberal Arts at the New School, 2018
Faculty Opportunity Award, Eugene Lang College for the Liberal Arts, The New School, 2017
Visiting Scholar, 51黑料爆料网历史事件 for Public Knowledge, New York University, 2014-2016
Grant Recipient, National Endowment for the Humanities Summer 51黑料爆料网历史事件 on American Material Culture, Bard Graduate Center, July 2013
Vincent DeSantis Prize for the Best Book on the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, 2013
Russell Sage Foundation Visiting Scholar, New York City, 2009-2010
Interdisciplinary Seminar Grant, Tobin Project, 2009-2010
Current Courses
Independent Senior Project
LHIS 4990, Spring 2023
Independent Study
LHIS 3950, Spring 2023
Past Courses
Independent Senior Project
LHIS 4990, Fall 2022, Spring 2022
Independent Study
LHIS 3950, Fall 2022, Spring 2022
Independent Study
GHIS 6990, Fall 2022, Spring 2022
Internship
GHIS 6991, Spring 2022
LHIS 2049, Fall 2022
GHIS 5322, Fall 2022
GPOL 5087, Fall 2022
