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Jedediah Britton-Purdy

Jedediah Britton-Purdy teaches at Columbia Law School and is the author of Two Cheers for Politics: Why Democracy Is Flawed, Scary—and Our Best Hope, out in August.

All Articles
April 22, 2022
MagazineJedediah Britton-Purdy
Tocqueville’s Uneasy Vision of American Democracy
American government succeeded, Tocqueville thought, because it didn’t empower the people too much.
October 29, 2019
MagazineJedediah Britton-Purdy
What John Rawls Missed
Are his principles for a just society enough today?
April 15, 2019
Jedediah Britton-Purdy
Rebuilding Notre Dame
Civilization creates. Civilization endures destruction. Civilization builds again.
February 19, 2019
MagazineJedediah Britton-Purdy
The Spiritual Case for Socialism
A new book attempts to deepen the philosophical dimension of a revived left.
October 16, 2018
Jedediah Britton-Purdy
George Scialabba, Radical Democrat
A new collection of far-sighted essays dissects the pathologies of the present moment.
June 27, 2018
MagazineJedediah Britton-Purdy
The Remaking of Class
Long a silent presence in American life, class is now sharply felt in upheavals and displacement across the country.
November 1, 2017
MagazineJedediah Britton-Purdy
Paleo Politics
What made prehistoric hunter-gatherers give up freedom for civilization?
February 6, 2017
Jedediah Britton-Purdy
The Anti-Trump Left Is Now the Only Hope for Moderates
Conservative and liberal values alike are threatened without the safeguards the left demands.
February 1, 2017
MagazineJedediah Britton-Purdy
America’s New Opposition
From Occupy Wall Street to Black Lives Matter, the left has been reborn. Can it find a way to harness the populist uprising that brought Trump to power?
September 14, 2016
MagazineJedediah Britton-Purdy
Red-State Blues
Why do people support Trump and the Tea Party? A native son and a sociologist search for answers.
March 7, 2016
MagazineJedediah Britton-Purdy
A Wild Way to Save the Planet
Evolutionary theorist Edward O. Wilson has an ambitious plan to halt ecological ruin.
January 19, 2016
Jedediah Britton-Purdy
What Is the Constitution For?
Constitutions were a great democratic advance. Unfortunately ours is broken.
October 8, 2015
Jedediah Britton-Purdy
The Mushroom That Explains the World
An anthropologist tries to understand capitalism by studying a Japanese delicacy

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