Jonathan Levy

I am a historian of the United States, of capitalism, and the economy. I completed my PhD at the University of Chicago. Before coming to Sciences Po, I was the James Westfall Thompson Professor of History and Social Thought at the University of Chicago and before that professor of history at Princeton University. I have been a visiting professor at L’École des hautes études en sciences sociales and held the visiting Ciampi Chair at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa.

My two current research projects are a history of climate change, focused on the city of Houston, and a global history of money. I am the author of a work that places history and economic theory in conversation, The Real Economy, a narrative history of US economic life, Ages of American Capitalism, and a history of risk in the United States, Freaks of Fortune.

I am the co-editor of the journal, Critical Historical Studies. I am eager to advise graduate students working in the fields of US history and the history of the economy.

Publications

The Real Economy: History and Theory (Princeton University Press, 2025)

Ages of American Capitalism: A History of the United States (Random House, 2021)

Freaks of Fortune: The Emerging World of  Capitalism and Risk in America (Harvard University Press, 2012)

Prix et distinctions

Freaks of Fortune

- Chronicle of Higher Education "Most Influential Books of the Last Twenty Years" (2018)

- Organization of American Historians Book Prizes for 2013

Frederick Jackson Turner Award, first book on US history

Avery O. Craven Award, era of Civil War of Reconstruction

Ellis W. Hawley Prize, post-Civil War politics or political economy

- American Society for Legal History

William Nelson Cromwelle Book Prize, first book on legal history

- Society for U.S. Intellectual History

2013 Notable Title