"Meritocracy in America, 1930-2000"

Charles is a PhD candidate in American Studies with a primary field in history. His research ranges across political, intellectual, cultural, and business history, pursuing a broad study of modern political economy. His dissertation is the first history of meritocracy as an idea and a practice in the United States, focused on the intersection of high technology, education, social theory, and the Democratic party in the second half of the twentieth century. He received a B.A. in English from Carleton College in 2005. Before coming to Harvard he worked as a journalist and critic, writing for the New York Times, the Nation, and the New York Review of Books; he has been an editor at n+1 magazine since 2007.