The presidents of three nations – the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia – have given Michael Novak the highest award they can bestow on a foreign citizen. Each cited Novak’s work as human rights ambassador under Ronald Reagan, his eleven years of service on the boards of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, and the pre-1989 influence of his book The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism (1982), translated and distributed by underground presses behind the Iron Curtain in the 1980s. As one reviewer said of that volume, it “may prove one of those rare books that actually changes the way things are.”...
Overview
The Acton Institute's annual Acton University conference kicked off on June 12, 2012 with an evening plenary session featuring a conversation with public intellectual, author, and former US Ambassador Michael Novak. Novak was the George Frederick Jewett Chair in Religion, Philosophy, and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., and is currently Visiting Professor and Trustee at Ave Maria University in Florida. He is the 1994 recipient of the million-dollar Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. Mr. Novak has written numerous influential books on economics, philosophy, and theology, including his masterpiece, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism.
