Robert E. Wright approaches privacy from a historical perspective. Wright’s work examines the historical capacity and pecuniary and control incentives of governments to collect and analyze data about individual citizens and the for- and nonprofit institutions they voluntarily form to ameliorate perceived economic and social problems.

Wright has taught business, economics, and policy courses at Augustana University, NYU’s Stern School of Business, Temple University, the University of Virginia, and elsewhere since taking his Ph.D. in History from SUNY Buffalo in 1997. He is the (co)author of numerous journal articles and has contributed to over town dozen major books as a (co)author and (co)editor.