Jennifer Burns
Associate Professor of History
Bio
I am a historian of the twentieth century United States working at the intersection of intellectual, political, and cultural history, with a particular interest in ideas about the state, markets, and capitalism and how these play out in policy and politics.
My first book, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right (Oxford, 2009), was an intellectual biography of the libertarian novelist Ayn Rand. For more on this book, watch my interviews with Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert, or check out my website (www.jenniferburns.org). I am currently writing a book about the economist Milton Friedman.
At Stanford, I’ve been involved in a number of new initiatives, including serving as a faculty advisor to the Approaches to Capitalism Workshop at the Stanford Humanities Center, co-founding the Bay Area Consortium for the History of Ideas in America (BACHIA), and convening the Hoover Institution Library and Archives Workshop on Political Economy.
I teach courses on modern U.S. history, religious history, and the intellectual history of capitalism.
My writing on the history of conservatism, libertarianism, and liberalism has appeared in a number of academic and popular journals, including Reviews in American History, Modern Intellectual History, Journal of Cultural Economy, The New York Times, The New Republic, and Dissent.
Prospective graduate students: please consult my history department webpage for more information on graduate study. https://history.stanford.edu/people/jennifer-burns
Academic Appointments
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Associate Professor, History
Administrative Appointments
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Faculty Senate, Stanford University (2019 - 2021)
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Honors Director, History Department, Stanford University (2018 - 2020)
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Assistant Professor of History, Stanford University (2012 - 2016)
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Assistant Professor of History, University of Virginia (2007 - 2012)
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Lecturer, Department of History, University of California (2005 - 2007)
Honors & Awards
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Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University (2016-)
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Fellowship for University Professors, National Endowment for the Humanities (2017-2018)
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William C. Bark National Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University (2014-2015)
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Women's Leadership Fellow, Impact Center, Washington, DC (2013 - 2014)
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Research Award, University of Virginia Office of the Vice President (2011)
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Visiting Fellow, Center for Advanced Studies, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat (2011)
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Distinguished Lecturer, Organization of American Historians (2010 - 2016)
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Research Associate, Smithsonian Institution (2010 - 2011)
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Visiting Scholar, Centennial Center, American Political Science Association (2010 - 2011)
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Top Young Historian, History News Network (2010)
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Fellow, UVA Professors as Writers (2008 - 2009)
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Fellow, UVA Excellence in Diversity Fellowship (2008 - 2009)
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Campbell National Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University (2007 - 2008)
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Kettner Prize for Best Dissertation, UC Berkeley History Department (2006)
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Research Fellow, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library (2006)
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Faculty Advisor, UC Berkeley Library Prize for Undergraduate Research (2003, 2006)
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Thomas T. Hoopes thesis prize, Harvard University (1998)
Boards, Advisory Committees, Professional Organizations
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Faculty Convener, Hoover Institution Archival Workshop on Political Economy (2013 - Present)
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Faculty co-organizer (with Caroline Winterer), Bay Area Consortium for the History of Ideas (2012 - Present)
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Member, U.S. Civil Rights/MLK Institute Director Search Committee (2018 - Present)
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Faculty co-sponsor (with Richard White and Sylvia Yanagisako), Stanford Humanities Workshop: Approaches to Capitalism (2013 - 2018)
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Distinguished Lecturer, Organization of American Historians (2010 - 2016)
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Annual Conference Chair, 2016 United States Intellectual History Conference (USIH) (2015 - 2016)
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Executive Committee, Society for United States Intellectual History (S-USIH) (2015 - 2016)
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Chair (elected), Policy Committee, Stanford History Department (2018 - 2019)
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Member (elected), Policy Committee, Stanford History Department (2013 - 2014)
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Faculty Consultant, Hoover Institution Library and Archives (2012 - Present)
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referee, Journal of American History, Modern Intellectual History, History of Intellectual Culture (2010 - Present)
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Member, Academic Technology Committee, Stanford History Department (2012 - 2013)
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Member, Annual Prize Committee, Society for United States Intellectual History (2013 - 2013)
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Alumni representative (elected), Board of Trustees, The Taft School (2011 - 2015)
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Resident Faculty Fellow, Brown College, UVA (2009 - 2010)
Program Affiliations
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Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Professional Education
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Ph.D., University of California, History (2005)
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M.A., University of California, History (2001)
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A.B., Harvard University, History (1998)
2024-25 Courses
- American Intellectual History, 1900-Present
AMSTUD 154B, AMSTUD 54B, HISTORY 154B, HISTORY 54B (Aut) - Citizenship in the 21st Century
COLLEGE 102 (Win) - Thinking About Capitalism
HISTORY 269, HISTORY 369 (Aut) -
Independent Studies (7)
- Curricular Practical Training
HISTORY 299F (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Graduate Directed Reading
HISTORY 399W (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Graduate Research
HISTORY 499X (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Senior Research I
HISTORY 299A (Aut, Win, Spr) - Senior Research II
HISTORY 299B (Aut, Win, Spr) - Senior Research III
HISTORY 299C (Aut, Win, Spr) - Undergraduate Directed Research and Writing
HISTORY 299S (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum)
- Curricular Practical Training
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Prior Year Courses
2023-24 Courses
- Back to the Future: Media, Art, and Politics in the 1980s
AMSTUD 128B, COMM 128, COMM 228, COMM 328, HISTORY 258A, HISTORY 358A (Win) - Graduate Research Seminar: U.S. History in the 20th Century
HISTORY 468A (Win) - Graduate Research Seminar: U.S. History in the 20th Century Part II
HISTORY 468B (Spr) - The History of 2023
HISTORY 1 (Aut) - Thinking About Capitalism
HISTORY 269, HISTORY 369 (Aut)
2022-23 Courses
- Doing History: Biography as History
HISTORY 200BG, JEWISHST 200BG (Spr) - Graduate Research Seminar: U.S. History in the 20th Century Part II
HISTORY 468B (Spr) - Research Seminar for Majors
HISTORY 209S (Spr) - The History of 2022
HISTORY 1 (Aut) - The History of Ideas in America, Part II
AMSTUD 154B, HISTORY 154B, HISTORY 54B (Win)
2021-22 Courses
- Back to the Future: Media, Art, and Politics in the 1980s
AMSTUD 128B, COMM 128, COMM 228, COMM 328, HISTORY 258A, HISTORY 358A (Win) - Core in American History, Part V
HISTORY 351E (Spr) - Research Seminar for Majors
HISTORY 209S (Spr)
- Back to the Future: Media, Art, and Politics in the 1980s
Stanford Advisees
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Doctoral Dissertation Reader (AC)
Rebecca Lewis -
Doctoral Dissertation Advisor (AC)
Austin Clements -
Orals Evaluator
Max Fennell-Chametzky, Zoe Gioja -
Doctoral (Program)
Katherine Booska, Austin Clements, Jennifer Depew, Natalie Larah
All Publications
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Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism (Book Review)
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
2018; 123 (5): 1615–17
View details for DOI 10.1093/ahr/rhy207
View details for Web of Science ID 000456850900021
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Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America (Book Review)
HISTORY OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
2018; 50 (3): 640–48
View details for DOI 10.1215/00182702-7023786
View details for Web of Science ID 000444431200017
- Ayn Rand is Dead The Washington Post. 2017
- Trump's Favorite Intellectual Die Zeit. 2017
- Ayn Rand's Counter-Revolution The New York Times. 2017
- What Was Conservatism? The Chronicle of Higher Education - Chronicle Review. 2016
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The Three "Furies" of Libertarianism: Rose Wilder Lane, Isabel Paterson, and Ayn Rand
JOURNAL OF AMERICAN HISTORY
2015; 102 (3): 746-774
View details for DOI 10.1093/jahist/jav504
View details for Web of Science ID 000367181300004
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ACROSS THE GREAT DIVIDE: FREE MARKETS FROM RIGHT TO LEFT
MODERN INTELLECTUAL HISTORY
2014; 11 (1): 253-265
View details for DOI 10.1017/S1479244313000425
View details for Web of Science ID 000339242400012
- Milton Friedman: The Economist as Historian Joint Center for History and Economics 2013
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In the Ayn Rand Archive
RARITAN-A QUARTERLY REVIEW
2012; 32 (2): 53-74
View details for Web of Science ID 000311979800008
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Ron Paul and the New Libertarianism
DISSENT
2012; 59 (3): 46-50
View details for Web of Science ID 000305862600010
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Science-Mart: Privatizing American Science (Book Review)
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
2012; 117 (3): 902-903
View details for Web of Science ID 000305498400105
- Paul Ryan is far from an Ayn Rand Protegee US News and World Report 2012
- Ayn Rand's Long Journey to the Heart of American Politics The New Republic Online 2012
- Five Minute Tute: Professor Jennifer Burns on Ayn Rand, Philosopher and Novelist Oxford University Cherwell 2012; 10
- Will This Election Settle Republicans' Ayn Rand Debate? Echoes: Dispatches from Economic History 2012
- Ayn Rand, maitresse a penser du candidat republicain a Ia vice-presidence americaine, Mediapart, Mediapart.fr 2012
- Too Many Young Men Who Smoke Pipes: Time, Inc. and the Interstitial Intellectual American History 2012; 40 (1): 101 - 105
- Ayn Rand Encyclopedia of Modern Political Thought CQ Press. 2012
- The Measure of All Things: How Markets Beat out Citizenship to Define Our Public Life The American Prospect 2012: 79 - 80
- Atlas Spurned The New York Times 2012
- Sex and the Conservatives' Matriarch The Boston Globe 2012
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The Rise and Fall of Modern American Conservatism: A Short History (Book Review)
JOURNAL OF AMERICAN HISTORY
2011; 97 (4): 1093-1095
View details for DOI 10.1093/jahist/jaq025
View details for Web of Science ID 000288292700013
- The Root of All Good: Ayn Rand's Meaning of Money Journal of Cultural Economy 2011; 4 (3): 329 - 347
- How Randian was Ayn Rand? The Washington Post 2011
- Isabel Paterson American National Biography Oxford University Press. 2011
- Rose Wilder Lane American National Biography Oxford University Press. 2011
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IN SEARCH OF A USABLE PAST: CONSERVATIVE THOUGHT IN AMERICA
MODERN INTELLECTUAL HISTORY
2010; 7 (2): 479-494
View details for DOI 10.1017/S147924431000017X
View details for Web of Science ID 000280572300014
- From Hollywood to the Federal Reserve: The Making of Ayn Rand's Objectivism The Age of Conservatism: From Opposition to Power in France, Britain, and the United States 2010
- The Right Since Obama: The Rise of Market Fundamentalism Dissent Magazine 2010
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Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s (Book Review)
SOCIAL HISTORY
2010; 35 (2): 235-237
View details for Web of Science ID 000277853700023
- Book Notes: Phillip Lopate's Notes on Sontag Virginia Quarterly Review 2009
- Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right Oxford University Press. 2009
- How Free Should the Market Be: Was Ayn Rand a Prophet or a Scapegoat Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star 2009
- Vita: Ayn Rand: A Brief Life of an Iconoclastic Individualist Harvard Magazine 2009
- Ayn Rand and America's New Culture War The Christian Science Monitor 2009
- The Root of All Good: Ayn Rand and the Meaning of Money Beyond Liquidity: After the Crash Interdisciplinary Conference 2009
- Howard Roark in New Delhi: The Surprising Popularity of a Libertarian Hero in India Foreign Policy 2009
- Russia and the American Right Russia and the USSR in American Intellectual History 2008
- 0 Libertarian, Where is Thy Sting? Journal of Policy History 2007; 19 (4): 452 - 471
- Liberalism and the Conservative Imagination Liberalism for a New Century edited by Jumonville, N., Mattson, K. University of California Press. 2007: 58–72
- Godless Capitalism: Ayn Rand and the Conservative Movement American Capitalism: Social Though and Political Economy in the Twentieth Century America edited by Lichtenstein, N. University of Pennsylvania Press. 2006
- In Retrospect: George Nash's The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 Reviews in American History 2004; 32 (3): 447 - 462
- Godless Capitalism: Ayn Rand and the Conservative Movement Modern Intellectual History 2004; 1 (3): 359 - 385
- Skyscraper on a Hill: Ayn Rand and the Cultural Politics of American Capitalism Capitalism and Its Culture: Rethinking Mid-Twentieth Century American Social Thought 2003
- Leatherstocking Tales Dictionary of American History Charles Scribner's Sons. 2002
- Leaves of Grass Dictionary of American History Charles Scribner's Sons. 2002
- Mysticism Dictionary of American History Charles Scribner's Sons. 2002
- Modernism, Religious Dictionary of American History Charles Scribner's Sons. 2002
- Forever: De Beers and U.S. Antitrust Law Harvard Business School Case 700-082 Harvard Business School Press. 2000: 1–25
- Hitting the Wall: Nike and International Labor Practices Harvard Business School Case 700-047 Harvard Business School Press. 2000: 1–23
- Network Associates: Securing the Internet Harvard Business School Case 799-087 Harvard Business School Press. 1999: 1–20
- Agricultural Biotechnology Brief, 1999 Harvard Business School Case 700-066 Harvard Business School Press. 1999
- Environmental Risk Management at Chevron Corp Harvard Business School Case 799-062 Harvard Business School Press. 1999: 1–28