Westbrook has authored several books including City Of Gold: An Apology for Global Capitalism in a Time of Discontent, Navigators of the Contemporary: Why Ethnography Matters, and Getting Through Security: Counterterrorism, Bureaucracy, and a Sense of the Modern.

[1] Westbrook clerked at the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit from 1993 till 1995 for Judge S. Jay Plager and then worked as an Associate at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr.

[4] In the early 2010s, he authored a paper discussing the economy of North Atlantic countries and highlighted the presented approaches for collective thinking and decision making.

The book was reviewed as "a powerful demonstration of the limits at which global capitalism may be seen as an effective and efficient way of organizing economic interaction in our cosmopolitan society.

"[6] According to E. Fuat Keyman, "In City of Gold, Westbrook makes a significant contribution to the literature on globalization by going beyond a purely market-based or a state-centric analysis of social change".

"[9] Mae Kuykendall reviewed that "Westbrook draws on his wide knowledge of law, finance, literary theory, cultural anthropology, and political history to guide us through our recent disaster.