Jacob Soll
Jacob Soll (born 1968) is an American university professor and professor of philosophy, history and accounting at the University of Southern California. Soll's work examines the mechanics of politics, statecraft and economics by dissecting the various elements of how modern states and political systems succeed and fail. He studies the philosophies of political and economic freedom with a focus on the relationship of the individual to the state.
Jacob Soll | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1968 (age 55–56) Madison, Wisconsin, U.S. |
| Alma mater | University of Iowa, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Magdalene College, Cambridge |
| Awards | 2005 Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History
2009 Guggenheim Fellowship 2011 MacArthur Fellowship 2011 National Endowment for the Humanities 2017 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Intellectual, political, and economic history and philosophy |
| Institutions | University of Southern California, Rutgers University-Camden, Princeton University |
| Doctoral advisor | Peter Burke |
His first book, Publishing ¨The Prince¨: Reading, History, and the Birth of Political Criticism," (2005) a study of the influence of Machiavelli's theory of prudence from the Enlightenment to the Renaissance, won the 2005 Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History.
Soll was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2009 to write his second book, The Information Master: Jean Baptiste Colbert's State Information System, a history of Louis XIV's famous finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert's use of information in state-building.
In 2011, he was awarded a $500,000 MacArthur Fellowship, known as the "Genius Grant" for his work on the history of the state.
At the University of Southern California, he teaches on the philosophy of economic and political thought and Renaissance and Enlightenment history and has organized forums on European politics.