His research focuses on topics in American political thought, democratic theory, and political ethics. His first book, Damn Great Empires! William James and the Politics of Pragmatism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), examines William James’s role in debates about U.S. imperialism at the turn of the century to show how pragmatism developed as a political response to the crises of authority and sovereignty driving the expansion of American power. He is currently writing a book on the genealogy of civil disobedience and the politics of nonviolence in the civil rights and antiwar movements.