He was a Fellow at the New America Foundation in 2001 and 2002, and rejoined the Foundation in 2004 after completing a clerkship with Judge Pierre N. Leval of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. He was also a Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. Professor Purdy holds an A.B. from Harvard College and a J.D. from Yale Law School. He is the author of For Common Things: Irony, Trust, and Commitment in America Today (Knopf, 1999) and Being American: Liberty, Commerce, and Violence in an American World (Knopf, 2003), and is the editor of Democratic Vistas: Reflections on the Life of American Democracy (Yale University Press, 2004). He has written for The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Die Zeit, Prospect (U.K.), and other publications. In 2002 Esquire Magazine named him one of the “Best and Brightest” young Americans.

Professor Purdy’s research focuses on how property regimes can be reformed to promote and secure human freedom and environmental sustainability. He is also interested in theories of empire, the interaction between political and economic systems, and the history of environmental values. He is a member of the editorial advisory board of Ethics and International Affairs and a contributing editor at The American Prospect.

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