Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Book Review

October 23, 2018

The nation-state and security of freedom

In a recent article for Law and Liberty, Samuel Gregg, Acton’s Director of Research, reviews French political scientist Gil Delannoi’s new book Le nation contre le nationalisme. “Since 2016,” Gregg writes, “it has become evident that millions of people are not content to be herded, sheep-like, by intellectuals, techno-utopians, and supranational bureaucrats down the path of global governance. Continue Reading...
October 17, 2018

Review: Bradley Birzer’s Russell Kirk biography invites us to reconsider conservatism

This is the fifth in a series celebrating the work of Russell Kirk in honor of his 100th birthday this October. Read more from the series here. During the twentieth century, one man in particular took it upon himself to make a project of defining and perhaps re-invigorating an American conservatism which the prominent cultural critic Lionel Trilling dismissed as “a series of irritable mental gestures.” Continue Reading...
May 05, 2018

Another take on ‘Pope Francis and the Caring Society’

ICYMI: Over at The Federalist this past Friday, Ethics and Public Policy Center Fellow Luma Simms reviews Pope Francis and the Caring Society. As noted in my April 18 review, the collection of essays includes perceptive and educational insights from Acton’s own Samuel Gregg as well as many others, including Phillip Booth. Continue Reading...
April 23, 2018

The decline of Western civilization, redux

A review of Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics Is Destroying American Democracy by Jonah J. Goldberg, Crown Forum, 2018, 442 pp., $28. Suicide of the West is intended as a “serious” work, which it is indeed. Continue Reading...
April 18, 2018

A polite rebuke of Pope Francis’ economic confusion

Review of Pope Francis and the Caring Society, edited by Robert M. Whaples; The Independent Institute, Oakland, CA; 2017, 234 pp. Having toiled in the free-market research universe for nearly two decades, perhaps the most common misperception I’ve encountered is “whataboutism.” Continue Reading...
April 09, 2018

Virtues, once again

“Crisis of Responsibility: Our Cultural Addiction to Blame and How You Can Cure It,” by David L. Bahnsen; Foreward by David French; PostHill Press, 2018; 170 pp.; $26. It’s been a long, hard slog on humanity’s path to the current century and its peculiar predicaments. Continue Reading...
March 07, 2018

Samuel Gregg on contradictions in the papacy

Journalist and Harvard alumnus Philip F. Lawler is no stranger to spotting inconsistencies in the Catholic Church. After the Catholic Church’s sex-abuse crisis unveiled in 2002, Lawler released his highly researched book, The Faithful Departed, tracing the Church’s history of corruption while maintaining an “attention to facts” and a “calm tone.” Continue Reading...