Jedediah Purdy's Books

For Common Things

Irony, Trust, and Commitment in America Today

By: Jedediah Purdy

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For Common Things

Irony, Trust, and Commitment in America Today

By: Jedediah Purdy

Jedediah Purdy calls For Common Things his "letter of love for the world's possibilities." Indeed, these pages--which garnered a flurry of attention among readers and in the media--constitute a passionate and persuasive testament to the value of political, social, and community reengagement. Drawing on a wide range of literary and cultural influences--from the writings of Montaigne and Thoreau to the recent popularity of empty entertainment and breathless chroniclers of the technological age--Purdy raises potent questions about our stewardship of civic values. Most important, Purdy offers us an engaging, honest, and bracing reminder of what is crucial to the healing and betterment of society, and impels us to consider all that we hold in common.

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Page Count

258

Publisher

Vintage

Published Date

ISBN 10

0307757277

ISBN 13

9780307757272

The Meaning of Property

Freedom, Community, and the Legal Imagination

By: Jedediah Purdy

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The Meaning of Property

Freedom, Community, and the Legal Imagination

By: Jedediah Purdy

From the bestselling author of For Common Things, a brilliant and ambitious rethinking of the meaning of property in democratic society In his latest book, Jedediah Purdy takes up a question of deep and lasting importance: why is property ownership a value to society? His answer returns us to the foundations of American society and enables us to interpret the writings of the patron saint of liberal economics, Adam Smith, in a wholly new light. Unlike Milton Friedman and other free-market scholars, who consider property a key to efficient markets, Purdy draws upon Smith’s theories to argue that the virtues of wealth are social rather than economic. In Purdy’s view, ownership does much more than shield one from government interference. Property shapes social life in ways that bring us closer to, or take us farther from, the ideal of a community of free and equal members. This view of property is neither libertarian nor communitarian but treats the community as the precondition of individual freedom. This view informed U.S. law in the early days of the republic, Purdy writes, and it is one that we need to restore today. Touching upon some of the most charged issues in American politics and law, including slavery, inheritance, international development, and climate change, The Meaning of Property offers a compelling new view of property and freedom and enriches our understanding of democratic society.

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Page Count

240

Publisher

Yale University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0300156162

ISBN 13

9780300156164

Being America

Liberty, Commerce, and Violence in an American World

By: Jedediah Purdy

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Being America

Liberty, Commerce, and Violence in an American World

By: Jedediah Purdy

Having risen to national attention with his first book, For Common Things, Jedediah Purdy now cements his claim to being one of the most arresting public intellectuals of his generation. In Being America, Purdy turns his erudition and unique perspective to America’s relationship with a world that both admires and hates it. Purdy has absorbed insights from people around the world: Westernized Egyptians who consider Osama bin Laden a hero, an urbane Indian who espouses gay rights and the most thuggish kind of Hindu nationalism, Cambodian sweat-shop workers, and others. Out of these conversations—and his inspired readings of political thinkers from Edmund Burke to James Madison—Purdy breathes new meaning into the American values of democracy, liberty, and free trade. Clear-thinking and far-sighted, Being America encourages America to strive to realize the potential it doesn’t always know it has.

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Page Count

370

Publisher

Vintage

Published Date

ISBN 10

0307424944

ISBN 13

9780307424945

After Nature

A Politics for the Anthropocene

By: Jedediah Purdy

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After Nature

A Politics for the Anthropocene

By: Jedediah Purdy

An Artforum Best Book of the Year A Legal Theory Bookworm Book of the Year Nature no longer exists apart from humanity. Henceforth, the world we will inhabit is the one we have made. Geologists have called this new planetary epoch the Anthropocene, the Age of Humans. The geological strata we are now creating record industrial emissions, industrial-scale crop pollens, and the disappearance of species driven to extinction. Climate change is planetary engineering without design. These facts of the Anthropocene are scientific, but its shape and meaning are questions for politics—a politics that does not yet exist. After Nature develops a politics for this post-natural world. “After Nature argues that we will deserve the future only because it will be the one we made. We will live, or die, by our mistakes.” —Christine Smallwood, Harper’s “Dazzling...Purdy hopes that climate change might spur yet another change in how we think about the natural world, but he insists that such a shift will be inescapably political... For a relatively slim volume, this book distills an incredible amount of scholarship—about Americans’ changing attitudes toward the natural world, and about how those attitudes might change in the future.” —Ross Andersen, The Atlantic

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337

Publisher

Harvard University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0674368223

ISBN 13

9780674368224

Two Cheers for Politics

Why Democracy Is Flawed, Frightening--And Our Best Hope

By: Jedediah Purdy

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Two Cheers for Politics

Why Democracy Is Flawed, Frightening--And Our Best Hope

By: Jedediah Purdy

One of the country's most astute legal scholars explains how American political culture disempowers ordinary citizens and makes the case for a reinvigorated democracy Americans across the political spectrum agree that our democracy is in crisis. We view our political opponents with disdain, if not terror, and an increasing number of us are willing to consider authoritarian alternatives. In Two Cheers for Politics, Jedediah Purdy argues that this heated political culture is a symptom not of too much democracy but too little. Today, the decisions that most affect our lives and our communities are often made outside the political realm entirely, as market ideology, constitutional law, and cultural norms effectively remove broad swaths of collective life from the table of collective decision. The result is a weakened and ineffective political system and an increasingly unequal and polarized society. If we wish to renew that society, we'll need to claw back the ground that we've ceded to anti-politics and entrust one another with the power to shape our common life.

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304

Published Date

ISBN 10

1541673026

ISBN 13

9781541673021

A Tolerable Anarchy

Rebels, Reactionaries, and the Making of American Freedom

By: Jedediah Purdy

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A Tolerable Anarchy

Rebels, Reactionaries, and the Making of American Freedom

By: Jedediah Purdy

In A Tolerable Anarchy, Jedediah Purdy traces the history of the American understanding of freedom, an ideal that has inspired the country’s best—and worst—moments, from independence and emancipation to war and economic uncertainty. Working from portraits of famous American lives, like Frederick Douglas and Ralph Waldo Emerson, Purdy asks crucial questions about our relationship to liberty: Does capitalism perfect or destroy freedom? Does freedom mean following tradition, God’s word, or one’s own heart? Can a nation of individuals also be a community of citizens? This is history that speaks plainly to our lives today, urging readers to explore our understanding of our country and ourselves, and a provocative look at one of America’s cherished principles.

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Page Count

306

Publisher

Vintage

Published Date

ISBN 10

1400095840

ISBN 13

9781400095841

Democratic Vistas

Reflections on the Life of American Democracy

By: Jedediah Purdy,Anthony T. Kronman,Cynthia Farrar

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Democratic Vistas

Reflections on the Life of American Democracy

By: Jedediah Purdy,Anthony T. Kronman,Cynthia Farrar

In this thought-provoking collection, leading scholars explore democracy in the United States from a sweeping variety of perspectives. A dozen contributors consider the nature and prospects of democracy as it relates to the American experience—free markets, religion, family life, the Cold War, higher education, and more. These probing essays bring American democracy into fresh focus, complete with its idealism, its moral greatness, its disappointments, and its contradictions. Based on DeVane lectures delivered at Yale University, these writings examine large themes and ask important questions: Why do democratic societies, and the United States in particular, tolerate profound economic inequality? Has the United States ever been truly democratic? How has democratic aspiration influenced the development of practices as diverse as education, religious worship, and family life? With deep insights and lively discussion, the authors expand our understanding of what democracy has meant in the past, how it functions now, and what its course may be in the future.

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Page Count

288

Publisher

Yale University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0300130481

ISBN 13

9780300130485

Two Cheers for Politics

Why Democracy Is Flawed, Frightening—and Our Best Hope

By: Jedediah Purdy

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Two Cheers for Politics

Why Democracy Is Flawed, Frightening—and Our Best Hope

By: Jedediah Purdy

One of the country’s most astute legal scholars explains how American political culture disempowers ordinary citizens and makes the case for a reinvigorated democracy Americans across the political spectrum agree that our democracy is in crisis. We view our political opponents with disdain, if not terror, and an increasing number of us are willing to consider authoritarian alternatives. In Two Cheers for Politics, Jedediah Purdy argues that this heated political culture is a symptom not of too much democracy but too little. Today, the decisions that most affect our lives and our communities are often made outside the political realm entirely, as market ideology, constitutional law, and cultural norms effectively remove broad swaths of collective life from the table of collective decision. The result is a weakened and ineffective political system and an increasingly unequal and polarized society. If we wish to renew that society, we’ll need to claw back the ground that we’ve ceded to anti-politics and entrust one another with the power to shape our common life.

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Page Count

277

Publisher

Basic Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

154167300X

ISBN 13

9781541673007

This Land Is Our Land

The Struggle for a New Commonwealth

By: Jedediah Purdy

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This Land Is Our Land

The Struggle for a New Commonwealth

By: Jedediah Purdy

A leading environmental thinker explores how people might begin to heal their fractured and contentious relationship with the land and with each other. From the coalfields of Appalachia and the tobacco fields of the Carolinas to the public lands of the West, Purdy shows how the land has always united and divided Americans.

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Page Count

202

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0691216797

ISBN 13

9780691216799

After Nature

A Politics for the Anthropocene

By: Jedediah Purdy

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After Nature

A Politics for the Anthropocene

By: Jedediah Purdy

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Page Count

337

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Harvard University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0674368223

ISBN 13

9780674368224

This Land Is Our Land

The Struggle for a New Commonwealth

By: Jedediah Purdy

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This Land Is Our Land

The Struggle for a New Commonwealth

By: Jedediah Purdy

From one of our finest writers and leading environmental thinkers, a powerful book about how the land we share divides us—and how it could unite us Today, we are at a turning point as we face ecological and political crises that are rooted in conflicts over the land itself. But these problems can be solved if we draw on elements of our tradition that move us toward a new commonwealth—a community founded on the well-being of all people and the natural world. In this brief, powerful, timely, and hopeful book, Jedediah Purdy explores how we might begin to heal our fractured and contentious relationship with the land and with each other.

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202

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Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0691216800

ISBN 13

9780691216805

Being America

Liberty, Commerce, and Violence in an American World

By: Jedediah Purdy

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Being America

Liberty, Commerce, and Violence in an American World

By: Jedediah Purdy

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Page Count

370

Publisher

Vintage

Published Date

ISBN 10

0307424944

ISBN 13

9780307424945

A Tolerable Anarchy

By: Jedediah Purdy

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A Tolerable Anarchy

By: Jedediah Purdy

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Page Count

305

Publisher

Vintage

Published Date

ISBN 10

0307271439

ISBN 13

9780307271433

For Common Things

Irony, Trust, and Commitment in America Today

By: Jedediah Purdy

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For Common Things

Irony, Trust, and Commitment in America Today

By: Jedediah Purdy

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Page Count

258

Publisher

Vintage

Published Date

ISBN 10

0307757277

ISBN 13

9780307757272

Two Cheers for Politics

Why Democracy Is Flawed, Frightening—and Our Best Hope

By: Jedediah Purdy

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Two Cheers for Politics

Why Democracy Is Flawed, Frightening—and Our Best Hope

By: Jedediah Purdy

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

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Page Count

277

Publisher

Basic Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

154167300X

ISBN 13

9781541673007

Book's by Jedediah Purdy

For Common Things

For Common Things

The Meaning of Property

The Meaning of Property

Being America

Being America

After Nature

After Nature

Two Cheers for Politics

Two Cheers for Politics

A Tolerable Anarchy

A Tolerable Anarchy

Democratic Vistas

Democratic Vistas

Two Cheers for Politics

Two Cheers for Politics

This Land Is Our Land

This Land Is Our Land

After Nature

After Nature

This Land Is Our Land

This Land Is Our Land

Being America

Being America

A Tolerable Anarchy

A Tolerable Anarchy

For Common Things

For Common Things

Two Cheers for Politics

Two Cheers for Politics

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