Summary
"Engagingly, writing as if to old friends and foes, Michael Novak shows how Providence (not deliberate choice) placed him in the middle of many crucial events of his time: a month in wartime Vietnam, the student riots of the 1960s, the Reagan revolution, the collapse of the Berlin Wall, Bill Clinton... Full description
Summary: |
"Engagingly, writing as if to old friends and foes, Michael Novak shows how Providence (not deliberate choice) placed him in the middle of many crucial events of his time: a month in wartime Vietnam, the student riots of the 1960s, the Reagan revolution, the collapse of the Berlin Wall, Bill Clinton's welfare reform, and the struggles for human rights in Iraq and Afghanistan. He also spent fascinating days, sometimes longer, with inspiring leaders like Sargent Shriver, Bobby Kennedy, George McGovern, Jack Kemp, Václav Havel, President Reagan, Lady Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II, who helped shape -- and reshape -- his political views. Yet through it all, as Novak's sharply etched memoir shows, his focus on helping the poor and defending universal human rights remained constant; he gradually came to see building small businesses and envy-free democracies as the only realistic way to build free societies. Without economic growth from the bottom up, democracies are not stable. Without protections for liberties of conscience and economic creativity, democracies will fail. Free societies need three liberties in one: economic liberty, political liberty, and liberty of spirit."--Amazon.com |
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Item Description: |
Includes index. |
Physical Description: |
xx, 316 pages ; 25 cm |
ISBN: |
9780385347464 0385347464 |
Author Notes: |
He wrote a novel entitled The Tiber Was Silver. He received a master's degree in philosophy in 1966 from Harvard University. He taught at several universities including Stanford University, the State University of New York at Old Westbury, and the Catholic University of America. He wrote speeches and position papers for Eugene McCarthy, Robert F. Kennedy and George McGovern. In 1982, he founded the magazine Crisis with Ralph McInerny. He wrote numerous books during his lifetime including Belief and Unbelief: A Philosophy of Self-Knowledge, A Time to Build, A Theology for Radical Politics, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics: Politics and Culture in the Seventies, Choosing Our King: Powerful Symbols in Presidential Politics, Confession of a Catholic, Will It Liberate?: Questions About Liberation Theology, The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, No One Sees God: The Dark Night of Atheists and Believers, and Writing from Left to Right: My Journey From Liberal to Conservative. In 1994, he received the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. He died from colon cancer on February 17, 2017 at the age of 83. (Bowker Author Biography) |