Eli Cook

Eli Cook’s new book project at CASBS will examine the consequences of mass stock ownership in the late twentieth century. Tentatively titled What Is Good for the S&P 500: How the Middle Class Came to Root for Its Own Decline, the project investigates how millions of Americans entered the stock market since the 1980s and how this supposed “democratization” of finance reshaped political and economic attitudes. Cook intends to demonstrate that widespread stock ownership encouraged many middle class Americans to align their perceived interests with corporate profits, weakening support for labor, regulations, and redistribution. More broadly, the project explores how index funds and financial journalism helped normalize economic insecurity, environmental degradation, and even political oligarchy.

Cook is an associate professor of American history at the University of Haifa and the author of the award-winning The Pricing of Progress: Economic Indicators and the Capitalization of American Life (Harvard University Press, 2017). His second book, Choose Your Own Captivity: How Corporations Built Our Choices and Sold Our Freedom, will be published in February 2027 by Crown (Penguin Random House). It explores the history of “choice architects” and the analog origins of digital capitalism, tracing how corporations structured modern choice through mechanisms ranging from multiple-choice tests and supermarket shelves to Google’s search engine and Uber driver ratings.