gertrude himmelfarb

May 07, 2019

Catholic ‘anti-liberalism’ – a response to Dan Hugger

My colleague Dan Hugger’s latest post on the PowerBlog titled “The dangers of Catholic anti-liberalism” got me thinking about a subject that has always intrigued me: The relationship between the Catholic Church and liberalism. Continue Reading...

November 11, 2015

Gertrude Himmelfarb ‘Threads the Needle’ on Lord Acton Biography

Biographers suffer from a myriad of temptations. Gertrude Himmelfarb, in her bibliography to the newly republished Lord Acton: A Study in Conscience and Politics, recalls how Acton’s first biographer, Ulrich Noack struggled mightily to reconcile contradictions and tensions in Acton’s thought and in doing so lost much of the man himself. Continue Reading...

August 06, 2013

Lord Acton and America’s Moral Absolutes Concerning Liberty

Lord Acton once said of the American revolution: “No people was so free as the insurgents, no government less oppressive than the government which they overthrew.” It was America’s high view of liberty and its ideas that cultivated this unprecedented freedom ripe for flourishing. Continue Reading...

March 27, 2013

Women of Liberty: Gertrude Himmelfarb

(March is Women’s History Month. Acton will be highlighting a number of women who have contributed significantly to the issue of liberty during this month.) What does the Victorian era have to do with contemporary culture and society? Continue Reading...

September 17, 2007

‘Values’ and Voter Debates

It’s perhaps serendipitous that I’m beginning to read Gertrude Himmelfarb’s The De-Moralization of Society: From Victorian Virtues to Modern Values on the same day that the first Values Voter Debate is going to be held in Ft. Continue Reading...

August 10, 2007

Book Review Roundup

Here are some book reviews of note from recent weeks that you may find to be of interest: Charles H. Parker. The Reformation of Community: Social Welfare and Calvinist Charity in Holland, 1572-1620. Continue Reading...