Five essential books for understanding why we choose what we choose

Sophia Rosenfeld is Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History and former chair of the Department of History at the University of Pennsylvania, where she teaches European and American intellectual and cultural history with a special emphasis on the Enlightenment, the trans-Atlantic Age of Revolutions, and the legacy of the eighteenth century for modern democracy.

[The Page 99 Test: Common Sense: A Political History; The Page 99 Test: Democracy and Truth]

Her latest book is The Age of Choice: A History of Freedom in Modern Life.

At Lit Hub Rosenfeld tagged five important books for understanding why we choose what we choose. One title on her list:

Lorraine Daston, Rules: A Short History of What We Live By

Rules: A Short History of What We Live By is an eye-opening recent account of how something as fundamental as the different kinds of rules by which we organize our existences have evolved, in practice and theory, from antiquity to the present. After reading this book, you won’t look the same way at shaking hands, getting on a highway at a busy interchange, or buying groceries on your computer. Daston’s specialty is the history of thinking itself.

Read about another title on Rosenfeld's list.

--Marshal Zeringue