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...

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...

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...

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...

What began as outrage over the beating death of Mahsa Amini during a crackdown on women not wearing the hijab has e a nationwide protest against an extremist regime that also persecutes Christians and all other religious minorities. Read More… The cruelty of the Iranian regime is on display daily. In July, Tehran initiated a crackdown on unveiled women, which two months later resulted inthe death of Mahsa Amini, apparently from a police beating, and triggered mass protests across the...

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...

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...

The CCP succeeds in delaying entrepreneur and democracy advocate Jimmy Lai’s trial by almost two weeks. Read More… Hong Kong freedom fighter Jimmy Lai was scheduled to go on trial this week for alleged crimes against China’s National Security Law. However, Hong Kong’s immigration department has succeeded in pushing the trial back by denying Lai access to a key international lawyer on his legal team: Timothy Owen, whose visa was recently withheld by a Hong Kong court. The trial, originally...

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...

An 8-part series on what the author of The Tragedy of American Compassion saw from his ringside seat at the welfare reform passionate conservatism fights. Read More… “You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly.” Those are the opening lines of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I can start...