April 15, 2004

Speaker Biographies

Christopher DeMuth has been president of AEI since 1986. He previously practiced law, was a consulting economist, taught at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and held positions in the Reagan and Nixon administrations. His articles have appeared in Commentary, The Public Interest, the Harvard Law Review, the Wall Street Journal, and The American Enterprise.

Charles Murray is the W. H. Brady Scholar in Culture and Freedom at AEI. A political scientist by training, he researches family, culture, crime, education, and welfare. Mr. Murray's major books are Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980 (1984); In Pursuit: Of Happiness and Good Government (1988); The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life (with Richard J. Herrnstein, 1994); What It Means to Be a Libertarian: A Personal Interpretation (1997); and most recently, Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950 (2003).

Theologian, author, and former U.S. ambassador, Michael Novak currently holds the George Frederick Jewett Chair in Religion and Public Policy at AEI. He is the 1994 recipient of the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. Mr. Novak has written twenty-five influential books on the philosophy and theology of culture, especially the essential elements of a free society. His writings have appeared in every major Western language, and in Bengali, Korean, and Japanese. His masterpiece, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, has been reprinted in Latin America and was published underground in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Germany, China, and Hungary. For his work and influence, he has received dozens of prestigious awards. Mr. Novak's latest articles and descriptions of his major writings can be found at http://www.michaelnovak.net.

Jonathan Rauch is a senior writer and columnist for National Journal, a writer in residence at the Brookings Institution, and a correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly. He is the author or coauthor of several books on public policy, culture, and economics, including Government's End: Why Washington Stopped Working (1999); American Finance for the 21st Century (with Robert E. Litan, 1998); and Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought (1995). His work has appeared in The New Republic, The Economist, Harper's, Fortune, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and Slate, among other publications.

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