Welcome! I am a PhD student in political science at the University of Toronto. I study extremism and moderation in republican politics, with a particular focus on the political thought of jurists and historians.

My dissertation, Montesquieu and the Spirit of Rome, concerns Montesquieu’s profound analysis of the challenges and temptations presented by Rome for the modern world. Montesquieu both used Rome to gain distance from the commercial order he saw rising around him and insisted that Rome must be confronted, head on, by anyone who wished to return and defend the modern order wisely. The sources of radicalism that Montesquieu found in Rome remain with us today.

In addition to my dissertation I have co-authored articles on Montesquieu and Machiavelli in the American Political Science Review and the Wiley-Blackwell Companion to the Political Culture of the Roman Republic. I have also published a version of my first chapter, on Montesquieu’s Considerations and his conception of the state, in the Journal of the History of Ideas. You can find more information on my projects under the “Research” tab.

I live in Toronto with my wife, daughter, and ill-behaved dog.