Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'history'

October 13, 2008

A ‘Nazi Think Tank’

Speaking of the Nazis, I highly recommend Heiko A. Oberman’s essay, “From Luther to Hitler,” contained in the posthumously published The Two Reformations (Yale University Press, 2003). The piece is short and pointed, well worth the read, and just one of a number of excellent essays in that collection. Continue Reading...
February 28, 2008

Some problems with Protestantism

Following up on our discussion of the Pew survey on the American religious landscape, I have a few thoughts as to what plagues American Protestantism, particularly of the evangelical variety, and it has to do precisely with the “catholicity” of Protestantism. Continue Reading...
February 18, 2008

A note on social and intellectual history

Speaking of the history of morality and moral judgments in historiography, Alister MacIntyre makes a pointed observation about a complementary distinction that arises between what might be called “intellectual” and “social” history: Abstract changes in moral concepts are always embodied in real, particular events. Continue Reading...
February 13, 2008

A history of morality

Success unsettles the principles even of the wise, and scarcely would those of debauched habits use victory with moderation. — Sallust Last Saturday Dr. Ben Carson, Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital, received the Ford’s Theatre Lincoln Medal. Continue Reading...
November 27, 2007

On History, Education, and Great Books

Does a good education demand an appreciation for history? It would seem so. What arguments are there to support such a contention? Neil Postman writes, There is no escaping ourselves. The human dilemma is as it always has been, and it is a delusion to believe that the future will render irrelevant what we know and have long known about ourselves but find it convenient to forget. Continue Reading...
November 21, 2007

A Puritan Legacy

There’s no better time to re-examine the legacy of the Puritans than on the Thanksgiving holiday, which is so closely associated with the Pilgrim’s exodus to America in 1621. With that in mind, here are a few resources for understanding the worldview that Max Weber called a “worldly asceticism.” Continue Reading...
November 01, 2007

Samuelson on ‘The Global Poverty Trap’

Washington Post columnist Robert J. Samuelson discusses a new book on economic history that looks at the poverty problem from the perspective of “nature vs. nurture.” Comes now Gregory Clark, an economist who interestingly takes the side of culture. Continue Reading...
September 19, 2007

Colleges and Universities Fail at Teaching American Civics

“Is American higher education doing its duty to prepare the next generation to keep America free?” Apparently not, according to researchers at the University of Connecticut’s Department of Public Policy (UConnDPP), in a study commissioned by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s (ISI) National Civic Literacy Program. Continue Reading...
August 10, 2007

The New Martyrs

People light candles below a wooden cross at a site south of Moscow where at the height of Josef Stalin’s political purges 70 years ago firing squads executed thousands of people perceived as enemies of communism. Continue Reading...
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