Candles behind the Wall

Since the collapse of the Soviet empire, legion has been the number of studies and theories seeking to explain how and why its end came about as it did. However, few are as convincing as that put forth by Barbara von der Heydt in her new book, Candles behind the Wall: Heroes of the Peaceful Revolution That Shattered Communism. Von der Heydt’s thesis can be summed up in a phrase: communism failed because it was unable to make people forget about God.

by John-Peter Pham

Earth in the Balance

There has been much talk in the last couple of months about the Religious Right's growing involvement and influence within the Republican Party. Amid all the concern about the threat to our civil liberties represented by Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition, the media has greatly neglected the emergence of a more serious menace: Capture of the Democratic Party by the Ecological Religious Left.

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Environmental Overkill

If one believes what passes for science these days, the world is about to end. The globe is warming, ozone is disappearing, smog is expanding, forests are shrinking, species are dying, and carcinogens are spreading. What were once thought to be good--population growth and technological advance--are actually bad. Without radical change, it is said, the environment and mankind are doomed.

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The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

In his 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, Leo XIII condemned socialism as contrary to nature, liberty, natural justice, and common sense; predicted its failure; and upheld private property, personal initiative, and natural inequality. Forty years later, Pius XI’s Quadragesimo Anno established social justice as a central concept in Catholic social teaching.

by Acton staff

Solzhenitsyn and the Modern World

Why should it have been so hard to understand a writer who expresses himself with so little ambiguity? Or is it possible that his ideas were understood quite clearly but clearly hated, leading to futile attempts to discredit him? Ericson maintains his professional courtesies, but it’s hard to escape the conclusion that intellectual confusion alone cannot account for the hatchet jobs done on the expatriate Russian writer.

by Herbert Schlossberg

John Gray's Demolition Derby

The title of John Gray’s book could mislead some readers in the United States of America since “liberal” in England and Europe means the more or less coherent school of political thought wherein what is most important is the freedom of persons to govern themselves (as distinct from being governed by other persons). Government is established in societies to protect the right to this freedom. It is this negative right to liberty that the liberalisms of Gray’s book focus upon.

by Tibor Machan

After Nature's Revolt and From Apocalypse to Genesis

The environment is increasingly becoming a religious issue, as a host of environmental advocates attempt to “green” the church. More than a dozen volumes have been issued over the past two years alone, and new books seem to pour forth almost every day. Among the odder contributions—at least to anyone who believes in orthodox Christianity—are After Nature's Revolt and From Apocalypse to Genesis, both from Fortress Press.

by Doug Bandow

Envy: A Theory of Social Behaviour

Schoeck defines envy as “a drive which lies at the core of man’s life as a social being…[an] urge to compare oneself invidiously with others.” Denying the egalitarian dogma that envy is spawned by circumstance and can be cured by removing socioeconomic inequalities, he maintains, less flatteringly but far more believably, that envy is inherent in our nature, citing such compelling evidence as sibling rivalry among small children.

by John Attarian

Love and Profit: The Art of Caring Leadership

The book, Love and Profit: the Art of Caring Leadership by James A. Autry, arrived within a few days. Inside the fly cover was a comment by John Naisbitt and Patricia Aburdene, authors of Megatrends 2000. “The most caring (loving) book about management we have ever read. A real breakthrough. We predict it will become a classic.”

by William R. LaMothe

Understanding the Times

David Noebel ambitiously defends the biblical Christian worldview as “the one worldview based on truth” as he examines its chief rivals: Marxism/Leninism and secular humanism. In doing so, he underscores several significant points: First, beliefs matter. They are not simply “preferences.” A battle of ideas is a welcome advance beyond the anti-intellectualism of early fundamentalism, warm-hearted pietism, and lazy relativism. Second, beliefs have contexts and consequences.

by Todd Speidell

Beyond Liberation Theology

Humberto Belli is a Nicaraguan, the former editorial page editor of La Prensa, who, after a number of years in exile, returned to his homeland to help rebuild what the Sandinistas laid to waste. He currently serves as the Minister of Education, and is an enthusiastic Roman Catholic. He taught sociology at the University of Steubenville, and is the founder of the Puebla Institute, a center for communication about the situation of the church in Latin America.

by Rev. Robert A. Sirico

Birth of the Modern

Johnson presents a daunting tome of some one thousand pages filled with an interdisciplinary approach that views history as a whole, involving the interface between painters (Turner), musicians (Beethoven), scientists (Lyell), and ordinary people. This emphasis upon social history, avoiding the tendency of past historians to overemphasize political events, is common among contemporary historians.

by Christian D. Kettler