Book Reviews

June 12, 2019

A one-volume user’s manual for operating Western Civilization

Later this month, Gateway Editions will be releasing Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization, the new book by Acton research director Samuel Gregg. John Zmirak, senior editor at The Stream, has an early review of what he calls “a user’s guide to western civilization“: Read. Continue Reading...

June 10, 2019

Religious faith: It’s a market?

When a market is mentioned, buying, selling, and everyday business activities usually come to mind. Economists Rachel M. McCleary and Robert J. Barro have a broader focus in their new book, The Wealth of Religions: The Political Economy of Believing and Belonging. Continue Reading...

June 06, 2019

What exactly is Christian about the Christian’s work?

There is no shortage of Christian books about work and vocation. Indeed, there are entire movements centered on faith and work, or faith at work. These movements are now old enough that their history has become a subject of academic study. Continue Reading...

May 17, 2019

Abraham Kuyper and the ‘twoness theses’

In the academic world there are several well-known “twoness theses”, says Acton research fellow Andrew McGinnis, arguments by scholars that there are in one historical person two identifiable and contradictory lines of thought that warrant depicting the individual as divided. Continue Reading...

May 10, 2019

A how-to guide for opposing totalitarianism: A review of ‘On Tyranny’

The Book: On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder The Gist: Snyder, the Levin Professor of History at Yale University, presents twenty brief and practical lessons on how we can avoid tyranny in the future by learning from the totalitarianism of the twentieth century. Continue Reading...

May 02, 2019

Religious toleration in a religious state

The concepts of toleration espoused by theologians in the officially religious states of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries deserve closer examination. So argue Tobias Dienst and Christoph Strohm in their introduction to Martinus Becanus’s 1607 treatise, On the Duty to Keep Faith with Heretics. Continue Reading...

April 16, 2019

How Rod Dreher’s ‘Benedict Option’ misunderstands Christian liberalism

Rod Dreher is once again exasperated. He is frustrated by a rumor that George Weigel hasn’t bought the tireless promotion of his ‘Benedict Option’: A few months ago, Weigel appeared at an event in Providence, RI, to discuss the Benedict Option. Continue Reading...

April 02, 2019

Grace in our life together: Community beyond markets, states, and ‘social capital’

When discussing the role of economics in our life and world I am always careful to make a distinction: life is economic but economics is not all of life. I’ve suggested this broader understanding of personal and social interests has been common among major free-market theorists since Adam Smith. Continue Reading...

February 08, 2019

The libertine road to serfdom

The Sexual State: How Elite Ideologies Are Destroying Lives and Why The Church Was Right All Along. Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D. TAN Books, 2018. 406 pages. Reviewed by Rev. Ben Johnson Keen-eyed analysts have probed every ideological trend threatening liberty – from socialism and fascism to the Alt-Right – with one glaring exception: the revolt against personal responsibility. Continue Reading...

November 19, 2018

Conflict and resolution: Charles de Gaulle’s understanding of ‘nation’

In an article written for Public Discourse, Samuel Gregg. Acton’s director of research, reviews Julian Jackson’s recent book about General Charles de Gaulle. The book clearly communicates the idea that “de Gaulle’s conception of France as a nation had a very specific character.” Continue Reading...

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