John Ulric Nef, Jr. (1899–1988) was an American economic historian, and the co-founder of the University of Chicago's Committee on Social Thought.
He brought a number of distinguished people he had encountered in his travels abroad such as Marc Chagall, T. S. Eliot, Igor Stravinsky, and Jacques Maritain to the Committee.
His largest domain of interest was the Western Europe's economic, cultural, and military history since the end of the 15th century.
[4] He was an author of a number of books which include Industry and Government In France and England 1540-1640 (1940), War and Human Progress (1950), The United States and Civilization (1967), The Rise of the British Coal Industry (1932), The Conquest of the Material World (1964), and Search for Meaning: Autobiography of a Non-Conformist (1973).
[2] Apart from being an economic historian, Nef was also an officer of the French Legion of Honor, a philanthropist, and patron of the arts.