In our age of contested truths, the power to define reality is the ultimate sign of control. Do you control yourself, or does someone else?
Allen Mendenhall
Allen Mendenhall is a Senior Advisor for the Capital Markets Initiative and a Research Fellow in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. Previously, he served as Associate Dean and Grady Rosier Professor in the Sorrell College of Business at Troy University, where he also directed the Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy. He is a Visiting Fellow at the Madden Center for Value Creation at Florida Atlantic University.
His books include Literature and Liberty: Essays in Libertarian Literary Criticism (2014); Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Pragmatism, and the Jurisprudence of Agon: Aesthetic Dissent and the Common Law (2017); Of Bees and Boys: Lines from a Southern Lawyer (2017); The Southern Philosopher: Collected Essays of John William Corrington (2017); Writers on Writing: Conversations with Allen Mendenhall (2019); The Three Ps of Liberty: Pragmatism, Pluralism, and Polycentricity (2020); Shouting Softly: Essays on Law, Literature, and Culture (2021); A Glooming Peace This Morning (2023), a novel; and Controversies Among Conservatives: Conversations on Conservatism, Vol. II (2024), edited with Marcus Witcher and Kevin Hughes. He writes a weekly column for 1819 News, Alabama’s conservative news outlet.
He holds a B.A. in English from Furman University, an M.A. in English from West Virginia University, a J.D. from West Virginia University College of Law, an LL.M. in transnational law from Temple University Beasley School of Law, and a Ph.D. in English from Auburn University.
From 2016 to 2020, he was Associate Dean and Founding Executive Director of the Blackstone & Burke Center for Law & Liberty at Faulkner University Thomas Goode Jones School of Law in Montgomery, Alabama. He edited Southern Literary Review for more than a decade (2011–2022) and has served as a visiting scholar (2020) and trustee (2023) at the American Institute for Economic Research. His additional affiliations include adjunct legal associate at the Cato Institute (2009); Mises Canada Emerging Scholar with the Ludwig von Mises Institute Canada (2014); elected member of the Mont Pelerin Society (2024); associate of the Abbeville Institute (2011–present); Humane Studies Fellow with the Institute for Humane Studies (2011–2012); staff attorney for Chief Justice Roy S. Moore of the Supreme Court of Alabama (2013–2016); Assistant Attorney General in the Alabama Office of Attorney General Luther Strange (2016); AmPhil Fundraising Fellow with the Center for Civil Society of American Philanthropic (2023–2024); Advisory Council Member of the Law & Liberty Circle at Universidad Francisco Marroquín (2024–present); elected member (2012) and former trustee (2018–2022) of the Philadelphia Society; associated scholar at the Ludwig von Mises Institute (2017–present); policy adviser for the Heartland Institute (2016–present); former president of the Alabama Association of Scholars (2017–2020); president of the Montgomery Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society (2013–present); and Chairman of the Board of Managers of the Alabama Center for Law & Liberty (2022–2024).
In 2023, he was an inaugural recipient of the Freedom and Opportunity Academic Prize from the Heritage Foundation. In 2024, he was a Club for Growth Foundation Fellow and a Lincoln Fellow with the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy.
He has taught in university English departments, business schools, a humanities department, a law school, a Japanese private school (juku), and a penitentiary. He serves or has served on numerous boards, including the Alabama Public Television Foundation Authority (2019–present); the Young Professionals Board of the Alabama Humanities Foundation (2015–2016); the Society for Law and Culture, a division of the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal (2017–present); Trinity Christian School (2017–2020); Ivy Classical Academy (2025–present); and the Philadelphia Society (2018–2022).
While in private practice in Atlanta, he represented nonprofit corporations and litigated matters involving real property, contracts, collections, foreclosures, restrictive covenants, and real estate transactions. He is a graduate of Leadership Lee County (Alabama), the Alabama State Bar Leadership Forum (Class 14), and the Atlas Leadership Academy of Atlas Network. He has authored hundreds of publications, including fiction and poetry, and studied under the creative writers Gilbert Allen, Michael Blumenthal, William Aarnes, and Chantel Acevedo.
His academic writing has appeared or is forthcoming in peer-reviewed journals including Journal Jurisprudence, Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, Public Choice, The Political Science Reviewer, Journal of Markets & Morality, Journal of Private Enterprise, Texas Review of Law and Politics, European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, Contemporary Pragmatism, The South Carolina Review, Academic Questions, The Independent Review, Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, Modernist Cultures, and British Journal of American Legal Studies, as well as law reviews published by Georgetown University Law Center, UC Berkeley School of Law, the University of Texas School of Law, Emory University School of Law, Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Texas A&M University School of Law, and Michigan State University College of Law.
His writing for popular media has appeared in Newsweek, Fox News, Fox Business, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, National Review, The American Spectator, Pacific Standard, The Hill, Los Angeles Review of Books, The American Conservative, City Journal, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, Public Discourse, Law & Liberty, The Epoch Times, The American Mind, The Freeman, Liberty, RealClearMarkets, The University Bookman, The Daily Signal, Chronicles, The Christian Lawyer, Writer’s Digest, The Conversation, and elsewhere. He has spoken at Harvard University, Brown University, Georgetown University Law Center, Universidad Francisco Marroquín, Furman University, George Mason University, the University of British Columbia, the University of Nevada–Las Vegas, Auburn University, West Virginia University, the Alabama State Capitol, the Alabama Supreme Court, and other universities and venues. He has been quoted or cited in Fox Business, Fox News, Forbes, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, The National Review, The Daily Caller, Le Monde, Times Higher Education, The College Fix, The Blaze Media, Campus Reform, Inside Higher Education, and U.S. News and World Report. He has appeared on networks as wide ranging as Fox News, Newsmax, C-SPAN, News Nation, NTD News, One America News Network, BBC World News, and Bannon’s War Room.
