Angus Burgin

Angus Burgin serves as an Associate Professor in the Department of History at Johns Hopkins University within the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, specializing in twentieth-century American intellectual and political history with a focus on the evolution of economic thought, capitalism, and technology. His scholarship critically examines how ideas about markets and politics transform within historical contexts, bridging archival rigor with contemporary relevance through close textual analysis and contextual understanding.

Burgin earned his PhD in History from Harvard University following undergraduate studies in History & Literature (Class of 2002), where his formative academic experience centered on "Primary Texts in their Contexts" methodology. This foundation propelled his doctoral research and subsequent career trajectory into the intellectual history of economic ideas.

His research spans intellectual history, political history, and the history of capitalism, with significant expansion into transnational intellectual history, history of technology, and moral/political economy since the 1930s. Burgin's work consistently interrogates the relationship between scholarly analysis and present-day societal challenges, emphasizing how historical understanding informs contemporary political and economic debates through meticulous engagement with primary sources and social contexts.

Publication trends reveal a sustained investigation into twentieth-century economic thought, evolving from foundational analyses of free market reinvention in The Great Persuasion (2015) toward contemporary intersections of technology and political economy, including his current book project on the intellectual history of the internet. This trajectory demonstrates increasing interdisciplinary scope while maintaining core methodological commitments to contextualized intellectual history.

Notable scientific awards include:

• Merle Curti Award from the Organization of American Historians for The Great Persuasion
• Joseph Spengler Prize from the History of Economics Society for The Great Persuasion
• Krieger School of Arts and Sciences Graduate Teaching and Mentoring Award (2019)

Burgin has mentored students who won the Butler Prize for best first-year graduate paper and Kouguell Prize for best undergraduate thesis. As founding director of the Moral and Political Economy undergraduate major and co-founder of the Center for Economy and Society, he has secured academic infrastructure for interdisciplinary scholarship. His editorial leadership includes executive editorship of the Intellectual History of the Modern Age series (University of Pennsylvania Press) and former co-editorship of Modern Intellectual History.

Collaborative initiatives feature the Center for Economy and Society at Johns Hopkins and a Stanford Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences working group that developed cross-disciplinary teaching platforms for moral political economy, directly leading to the new undergraduate major and fostering an interdisciplinary scholarly community.