Why has the life of this Oxford don, Christian apologist, and storyteller proved so seductive to filmmakers and playwrights? Perhaps because his life was a great story itself. Read More… Sometimes it seems as though the only things that exercise modern souls are sex, scandal, and sin, but all around us, every day, there are indications that a not-insignificant portion of the population seeks something more. These strivers and seekers are not looking for men whose flaws make them relatable...

We are men, not gods, and so utopia will always remain a dream, disappointing historians and economists of all stripes. But that is no reason to despair. Read More… As far as centuries go, the 20th was remarkable for many things, not least among which were wars fought on a scale unprecedented for their destructiveness, as well as convulsive debates about economics and economic policy. In the case of the latter, the 20th century witnessed economics emerging from being a...

Director Barry Levinson is one of the great American cinematic storytellers. And one of the stories he loves to tell is about making it in the New World, with lessons about the price of success for immigrants and their descendants alike. Read More… Barry Levinson was one of the most successful directors in America around 1990, when he made Avalon, an immigrant Thanksgiving movie trying to sum up the transformation of the American family in the 20th century. He won...

As the democracy activist is denied a jury trial, his defense team pushes for justice. Read More… Mere days after bringing a veteran British litigator on his legal team, jailed Hong Kong entrepreneur Jimmy Lai is moving to halt the trial proceedings entirely. In a pretrial interview, the 74-year-old Lai came before three National Security judges to review the charges brought against him. Lai’s trial, slated to begin in early December, is to be heard by a panel of judges...

The fight over “book banning” and who has the final word in a child’s education has taken some nasty turns of late. Everyone needs to take a step back and put the debate into monsense context. Read More… At its best, a democratic polity ought to deal well plexity, posed of clashing ideas and principles as well as the interests of multiple actors and stakeholders. Such a polity will seek proximate solutions that require constant fine-tuning. It will recognize trade-offs...

A new book by philosopher Edward Feser takes on the popularizers of CRT and demonstrates the theory’s incoherence and patibility with church teaching, even as racism remains an evil to batted. Read More… Two and half years ago, the police killing of George Floyd sparked rioting and heightened racial tensions across the United States, and many Americans began to hear the phrase “critical race theory” for the first time. Critical race theory (or CRT) has been around since at least...

A new book explores the long evolution of the free market economy, arguing it is more myth than fact. The problem is: The author is no economist, and so his facts are more myth than reality. Read More… Free Market: The History of an Idea by Jacob Soll, a professor of history, philosophy, and accounting, attempts to trace the philosophical and theoretical evolution of the free market over 2,000 years. But a century-by-century account would prove tedious if for no...

The imprisoned activist and entrepreneur faces life in prison as part of Beijing’s crackdown in Hong Kong. Read More… Although 74-year-old media mogul and pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai faces life in prison under Beijing’s harsh National Security Law (NSL), he now has a new ally in his corner: veteran human rights lawyer Timothy Owen. Lai, already serving time for convictions related to the NSL, still faces a December trial that could leave him spending the rest of his life behind...

How could a much-celebrated billionaire be reduced to virtually nothing in a matter of days? When your reality is all in your head. Read More… At the beginning of the year, I wrote a piece for Acton on Elizabeth Holmes, the con artist behind Theranos, the fake tech startup promising a revolution in blood tests and, thus, the beginning of a solution to the problem of healthcare costs. Come the year’s end, we have, apparently, another con man vaguely associated...

Approaching the end of a great career, the Oscar, Tony, and Olivier Award–winning playwright has produced one of his finest works: both surprising and ferocious. Read More… Tom Stoppard’s new play, Leopoldstadt, is a triumph of the playwriting art. It’s also a triumph of marketing. That’s because its advertising and publicity campaign has sold the public on the idea that it’s a multigenerational saga. It is that, but only secondarily. To a much greater degree, it’s a ferociously angry Holocaust...