Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Book Reviews

July 08, 2022

An economist’s summer reading list

If you attended Acton University, you saw the treasure trove of books for sale. Several of those books made it onto both my credit card and my summer reading list. Even if you weren’t able to join us at AU, you can still find most of the books here. Continue Reading...
June 29, 2022

The ground is shifting under Francis Fukuyama’s feet

In Liberalism and Its Discontents, Francis Fukuyama aims to defend liberal political ideas and institutions against rising and now entrenched detractors from the postliberal left and the right. As he notes, “liberalism is under severe threat around the world … its virtues need to be clearly articulated and celebrated once again.” Continue Reading...
June 07, 2022

Why Nineteen Eighty-Four still matters

June 8 marks the anniversary of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. That a greater gap separates us from 1984 than 1984 from Nineteen-Eighty Four’s 1949 publication staggers. The book, at least in terms of pundits’ invoking it, seems so very 2022 even if the script dictated that its peak as a cultural touchstone would occur in 1984. Continue Reading...
May 11, 2022

The Sowell of black America

“Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.” —Augustine Thomas Sowell is a towering figure in the liberty movement, certainly the most (in)famous “black conservative” of the 20th century. Continue Reading...
May 10, 2022

The Founders’ Constitution and its discontents

The term “constitutional law” is in large part a misnomer. This is rarely discussed within the guild of the legal profession and heretical in the increasingly woke precincts of the legal academy, where the field of “constitutional theory” is a cottage industry. Continue Reading...
May 03, 2022

Hollywood’s craven surrender to the Chinese Communist government

Who’s in charge in Hollywood? Surely studio bosses, well-compensated executives, A-list actors, and celebrated writers and directors set the agenda in the American entertainment industry, don’t they? Not so fast, says Wall Street Jour­­nal reporter Erich Schwartzel in a rigorously researched, admirably hard-hitting new book that looks at the pernicious influence of China on Hollywood. Continue Reading...