Eli Cook Profile picture
Historian @UofHaifa; 2021-22 @HumanAtStanford Fellow; Author of Pricing of Progress @harvard_press; Writing new book on choice architects for @CrownPublishing
Jul 31 5 tweets 1 min read
A short thread on why, as an Israeli lefty and former Philadelphian Jew, I ask: Please do not pick Josh Shapiro for VP: 1. Josh Shapiro suddenly started supporting school choice after GOP megadonor Jeffrey Yass suddenly stopped funding ads against him in the 2022 gubernatorial race. I think we know what happened here. Yass also gave to Shapiro campaigns back when he was AG. But there is more...
Mar 28, 2023 11 tweets 2 min read
A number of American friends have been asking about my thoughts on Israel so I figured I’d just do a thread. This isn’t some academic analysis or anything, just some things I’ve noticed as someone who follows the news closely and has been to probably a dozen protests. Here we go: 1. The threat was real. American Left is (rightfully) wary of anyone that leans on unelected Supreme Court, but in this case they were final line of defense before dictatorship. Israel has no other checks or balances. No constitution, no separation between exec. and legislature
Feb 22, 2020 14 tweets 3 min read
My article on the rise of Choose Your Own Adventure books in the 1980s is finally out with the Journal of American Studies! Here is a thread on some of its main points and a link to the article.
bit.ly/32pq1Pe This article is the first thing I have ever written on the late 20th century. Also, its by far my most "American Studies" work - going back to my roots as a PhD student at Harvard History of American Civilization department. Am Civ forever! 1/n
Nov 26, 2019 7 tweets 2 min read
THREAD: Rereading the Olmstead & Rhode take on New Hist of Capitalism because - good god - slavery/capitalism debate has reached Israel. I was particularly struck by this graph which O&R use to prove "U.S. cotton played no role in kick-starting the Industrial Revolution" 1/7 At first glance it looks like a pretty damning piece of evidence. Why Britian was importing loads of cotton well before the cotton gin explosion! But then I glanced at the left side of the chart and suddenly it looked a little fishy. The lines jump by an exponent of 10..weird 2/7
Aug 24, 2019 11 tweets 3 min read
1/ THREAD: One of the ironies of current capitalism/slavery debate is just how influential slavery was in shaping the very categories/methods/metrics growth-focused economic historians use today. 2/ Slavery was central to the idea that we should value the progress of a nation by calculating the income-generating powers of its residents. There are countless examples of this in my book, The Pricing of Progress. Here are a few nice tidbits: