“This is a book of astonishing insight by one of America’s most talented historians. Rosenfeld has that rare capacity to remove scales from our eyes and compel us to confront what we had failed to see. Readers will have no choice but to be enthralled.”
“This magnificent and original book is a mirror revealing who we are and how we got that way, in how we think about markets and politics, beauty and love, indeed being human itself. For holding the mirror up—and proposing that the alternative to choice is not necessarily constraint but a different kind of freedom—Sophia Rosenfeld deserves our deepest thanks.”
Finalist for the
Cundill History Prize
McGill University
Winner of the
István Hont Book Prize
Institute of Intellectual History
University of St. Andrews
Translations
Forthcoming in French (Seuil), Italian (Mondadori), German (Hamburger Edition), Korean (Eco-Livre)
“The Explosion of Choice”
Read an essay by Sophia Rosenfeld based on the book in Aeon.
“A fascinating exploration of how Western society has come to prioritize the freedom to choose everything from our leaders to our meals to what happens to our bodies. Rosenfeld’s insightful analysis is sure to change the way you think about having options.”
“Sophia Rosenfeld’s elegantly written, accessible, and compelling new book traces how the concept of choice came into being and became central to self-making in our time. Through varied accounts of how people decided what to buy, how voting became a protected form of choosing, and how reproductive rights became a matter of choice, The Age of Choice illuminates the link between selfhood and freedom that we take to be self-evident. It offers a fresh and insightful account of how modern liberalism came to be.”
New York Times
100 Notable Books of 2025
Finalist for the
Athenaeum of Philadelphia 2025
Literary Award
Library Journal
Best History Books of the Year
Behavioral Scientist
Notable Book of 2025
“Every so often a book comes along that suddenly makes you realize that what you thought was a simple given is actually a phenomenon with a complex and problematic history. The Age of Choice is just that kind of book.”
“Combining philosophical sophistication with ingenious social history, Sophia Rosenfeld has given us a tour de force on the modern history of the changing relation between ideas about choice and freedom. ”
Reviews
Henry Cowles, “Dealer’s Choice: What Freedom Is—and Isn’t”
Los Angeles Review of Books
Stephen Greenblatt, “Does Having Options Really Make Us Free?”
New York Times
Glenn C. Altschuler, “How We Choose What We Choose”
Psychology Today
Renata Nagamine, “Is Being Free Being Able to Choose?”
Folha de S. Paulo
Editor’s Choice, March 9, 2025
New York Times Book Review
Francesca Trivellato, “The Right to Choose Triumphed After Decades of Struggle”
Il Sole 24 Ore (Italy)
Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz “Our Modern Glut of Choice”
The New Yorker | Critics at Large
Andrew Lanham, “The Surprising History of the Ideology of Choice”
The New Republic
Guy Lancaster, Reviews of New Books
Marx & Philosophy Review of Books (UK)
Paul Schofield, “How Neoliberalism Has Distorted Human Choice”
Jacobin
Victoria Kahn, “From Dance Cards to Voting: How Consumer Choice Became far Removed from Economics”
Times Literary Supplement
David A. Bell, “My Freedom, My Choice”
New York Review of Books
Jonathan Marks, “A Critic of the World of Choice”
The Bulwark
Gal Beckerman, “Americans Are Tired of Choice”
The Atlantic
Daniel T. Rodgers, “The Birth of Modern Choice”
The Hedgehog Review
Walter Cummins, “The Age of Choice: A History of Freedom in Modern Life”
The California Review of Books
Benjamin Möckel, ”The Age of Choice”
H-Solz-Kult and Soziopolis (Germany)
Mattias Svensson, ”Freedom of Choice Has Always Bothered Intellectuals” and Carl Rudbeck, “Hur frigörande äregentligen valfriheten?”
Svenska Dagbladet (Sweden)
Michel André, “A History of Choice”
Books (France)
Nicholas Delalande, “La société à choix multiples”
La Vie des Idées (France)
Christopher Streb, “Sophia Rosenfeld: The Age of Choice”
Sehepunkte (Germany)
Antonia Pont, “Greifswald Winter: Choice as Synonym for Equality?”
Australian Book Review
Mae Kuykendall, “A History Lesson”
Constitutional Law JOTWELL
Michael Thorup, “Why We Shouldn’t Confuse Having Choices with Freedom”
Informatíon (Denmark)
Thomas A. Stapleford, “The Age of Choice”
History of Political Economy
Nathalie Caron, “Review”
Amerikastudien/American Studies (Germany)
Interviews & Other Media
newspapers & magazines
Le Monde (interview with Marion Duport) | “Our Modern Conception of Freedom is Modeled on the Consumerist Model” [PDF Version]
Jacobin (interview with Daniel Falcone) | “Choice and Its Discontents”
d La Repubblica (interview with Laura Piccinini) | “Does the Freedom to Choose Mean We Are All Free?”
Harvard Gazette | “Choice Is a Good Thing, Right?”
Le Vif (interview) | “The Age of Choice”
podcasts & radio
The Remnant Podcast (interview with Jonah Goldberg) | Freedom Hasn’t Always Meant Choice
Behind the News Radio Show Podcast (interview with Doug Henwood) | Listen Here
The Gist Podcast (interview with Mike Pesca) | ”The Cheesecake Factory Model of Freedom”
ABC Radio National (Australia) | “Does More Choice Give Us More Freedom?”
Current Affairs Podcast (interview with Nathan Robinson) | “‘Common Sense’ Is Destroying Democracy”
The Philosopher Podcast (interview with Isabelle Laurenzi) | “The Age of Choice’: Sophia Rosenfeld in Conversation”
In Theory: The JHI Blog Podcast (interview with Disha Karnad Jani) | “The Age of Choice”
Omnia Podcast (interview with Sudeep Bhatia) | “Choice and Consequence”
Radio France (France) | “And then we talk about freedom...”
New Books Network Podcast (interview with Mark Klobas) | “Sophia Rosenfeld, ‘The Age of Choice: A History of Freedom in Modern Life”
Scientific Sense Podcast (interview with Gill Eapen) | “Sophia Rosenfeld on Statistics, Democracy and Choice”
Keen On Podcast (interview with Andrew Keen) | “Sophia Rosenfeld Asks if Our Age of Choice Might Also Be An Age of Tyranny”
Converging Dialogues Podcast (interview with Xavier Bonilla) | “The Age Of Choice: A Dialogue with Sophia Rosenfeld”
American Trends Podcast (interview with Larry Rifkin) | “We Live in the Age of Choice”
Unsiloed Podcast (interview with Greg LaBlanc) | ”How The Invention of Choice Unlocked Freedom”
KPFA Radio, Against the Grain (interview with Sasha Lilley) | “Is Freedom a Choice?”
Reading Our Times Podcast (interview with Nick Spencer) | “How Have We Come to Deify Choice?”
Reason Podcast (interview with Nick Gillespie) | “The Surprising Origins of Modern Freedom”
The Not Old - Better Show Podcast (interview with Paul Vogelzang) | “Too Many Options? The Real History of Freedom and Choice”
Social Contract Research Network Podcast (Australia) | “Thinking About the Age of Choice”
Skeptic Podcast (interview with Michael Shermer) | ”You Had No Choices, Now You Have Too Many?”
The Andrea Mitchell Center Podcast (interview with Joshua Rose) | ”The Age of Choice: A Conversation with Sophia Rosenfeld”
American Prestige Podcast (interview with Daniel Jenkins) | ”Freedom of Choice with Sophia Rosenfeld”
Read Beat (…and repeat) Podcast (interview with Steve Tarter) | “The Age of Choice”
A Song Called Life Podcast (interview with Osi Atikpoh) | “Does Having More Choices Really Make Us Freer?”
other media
La Nación (Argentina) | “The Trap of Infinite Opinions”
Air France Magazine | Best of list of EnVols
Literary Hub (book excerpt) | “How Modern Life Has Been Shaped By the Power to Choose”
Corierre della Sera | “Sophia Rosenfeld and the Power of Trump”
The Next Big Idea Club | “When Choice Goes Wrong How Modern Options Limit Freedom”
Princeton University Press Ideas | “Sophia Rosenfeld on the Age of Choice”
Arab News | “What We Are Reading Today: The Age of Choice”
Fast Company | “Is Free Will Freeing?”
Harvard Magazine (book excerpt) | “The Sum of Our Choices”
Penn Today | “Exploring the History of Making Choices, Small and Large”
De Morgen (Belgium) | “Choice and Modern Feminism”
Le Un Hebdo (France) | “Overconsumption is a Fear Dating Back to the 19th Century”
Cultured Magazine | 10 Books to Buy the Trickiest People on Your Gifting List
Top New History Book | Five Books
Yi Ning Chiu, “I Wanted to Serve Both God and Mammon”
Christianity Today (Also a top book of 2025 in CT)
17 Books to Read in February 2025
Le Grand Continent
New Books for the New Year: January 2025 Starred Books
Library Journal
Most Anticipated: The Great Winter 2025 Preview
The Millions
February Must Read Book & 25 Highly Anticipated Books to Read in 2025
The Next Big Idea Club
