Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'world war ii'

September 02, 2025

VJ Day: Duty, Sacrifice … and the Bomb

Throughout freshman year at the Air Force Academy, my classmates and I were compelled to carry something that proved to be as ubiquitous as smartphones in the hands of today’s college students: a 192-page blue book entitled Contrails. Continue Reading...
August 15, 2025

Animal Farm at 80

On August 17, 1945—just two days after V-J Day in Asia and fewer than two weeks after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—George Orwell published what he modestly called his “little squib”: Animal Farm. Continue Reading...
May 13, 2025

The Summer of 1940 and the Fate of Western Civilization

There have been pivotal battles that, had they gone another way, would have changed the direction of Western history: John Sobieski’s victory over the Ottoman Empire at the gates of Vienna, the defeat of the Spanish Armada, Washington’s stand at Valley Forge, Wellington’s triumph at Waterloo, but none was as critical for the fate of Western civilization as the events that transpired over the summer and early fall of 1940. Continue Reading...
April 09, 2024

Man and Machine in World War II

Tom Hanks was the moral conscience of America in the ’90s, so far as Hollywood was concerned, and audiences largely concurred, because he’s like a new Jimmy Stewart: he exudes moral integrity and childlike innocence. Continue Reading...
July 20, 2022

The Survivor asks something of its audience

Barry Levinson is 80. The Oscar-winning writer-director has played a part in several of the best movies and TV shows of the past half century—and a few of the worst. That pattern of mixing abominable stinkers with memorable successes has continued into the past decade. Continue Reading...