On March 10th, Henry Holt and Co. released the first person account of Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng’s struggle for freedom and his fight for human rights in China: The Barefoot Lawyer.
The son of a poor farmer in rural China, Chen was blinded by illness in infancy and was fortunate to survive a difficult childhood. Despite his disability, he was determined to educate himself. He dedicated himself to fighting for the rights of his country’s poor, especially a legion of women who had endured forced sterilizations and abortions under the hated “one child” policy. Repeatedly harassed, beaten, and imprisoned by Chinese authorities, Chen was ultimately placed under house arrest. One morning in April 2012, he climbed over the wall of his heavily guarded home and made a daring escape. Days later, he turned up at the American embassy in Beijing, and only a furious round of high-level negotiations made it possible for him to leave China and begin a new life in the United States. Continue reading
The Institute is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Graham Walker as Senior Research Scholar. Walker served as President of Patrick Henry College from 2006 to 2014, where he was also Professor of Government. He is a member of the Faculty Advisory Council for the “Values & Capitalism” initiative at the American Enterprise Institute, and serves on the board of directors of the Institute on Religion and Democracy. Earlier, he was a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania; served as an NEH Fellow and John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton; was a Visiting Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute; and was a faculty member at The Catholic University of America. 
