Nicholas O'Neill

Nicholas O’Neill is a historian of capitalism whose work investigates how societies create markets and how the experience of markets shapes ideas about society. He received his PhD with distinction at the University of Chicago and was a visiting student at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and the École Normale Supérieure. Prior to joining the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership, he was a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in History and the Social Sciences at the University of Chicago.

O’Neill’s first book project uses the French porcelain industry in the eighteenth century as a case study to understand the institutional foundations of consumer society. Before the Industrial Revolution could take place, the Consumer Revolution had to create a society of consumers capable of buying both more and more varied goods. This project examines how French businesspeople and bureaucrats from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries invented ways to control and communicate information to consumers at the earliest stages of globalization and industrialization. His work has been supported by the Franco-American Fulbright Commission, Masséna Society, and University of Chicago; portions of it have twice been recognized by the Society for French Historical Studies; and it was recently selected as a finalist for the International Economic History Association’s prize for best global dissertation from 2021–2024.

Before entering academia, Nicholas O’Neill served in the US Army, leading an infantry squad in Afghanistan in 2006–2007. In addition to courses on political economy, he teaches courses on military history and global insurgencies. He is dedicated to working with veterans and military service members, including by volunteering as a writing instructor at Warrior Scholar Project and supervising oral history projects collecting veterans’ stories for the Library of Congress. As a former Pat Tillman Foundation scholar, he is particularly excited to give back to the ASU community.