The Anatomy of the Good

by | Sep 24, 2012

Putting on Virtue: The Legacy of the Splendid Vices by Jennifer A. Herdt. University of Chicago Press, [2008] 2012. Paper, 467 pages, $35.“’Tis hard to believe,” wrote Michel de Montaigne in his essay “On Virtue,” “that these so elevated qualities in a man can so...
Natural Law or Nihilism?

Natural Law or Nihilism?

by | Sep 24, 2012

The Wise Men Know What Wicked Things Are Written on the Sky by Russell Kirk. Regnery Gateway (1987), 132 pp. Although Dr. Kirk knows how hard the tempest of our time really rages, he has not fled or been driven to the heath like Lear or Lear’s fool. His insight is...

Endless Game of Thrones

by | Sep 17, 2012

A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin (5 of 7 planned volumes). Bantam, 1996–2012. Paper, 5232 pages, $75.   The embarrassment of narrative in a radically skeptical postmodern world is that it implies meaning. Simply constructing a story with beginning,...
Dos Passos: A Reassessment

Dos Passos: A Reassessment

by | Sep 16, 2012

Jean-Paul Sartre once called John Dos Passos [1896–1970] “the greatest novelist of the century,” a judgment which he did not hold alone.[1] Yet now, though Dos Passos has continued to write, few seem willing to rate him so highly. His biographer, John Wrenn, states...

Books in Little

by | Sep 16, 2012

Beyond Distributism by Thomas E. Woods Acton Institute, 2012, 79 pages, $3. The Bookman has long been an admirer of what has been called distributism, a social/economic theory that combines a preference for localism in politics and business, a strong agrarian focus,...

Cliché on a Hill

by | Sep 9, 2012

A conversation with Richard M. Gamble.Professor Richard Gamble, a Bookman contributor, holds the Anna Margaret Ross Alexander chair in history and political science at Hillsdale College. He has recently published In Search of the City on a Hill: The Making and...

Our Rascally World

by | Sep 9, 2012

On Essays and LettersIn a letter of Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) addressed to the poet Alexander Pope (1688–1744), dated September 29, 1725, Swift spoke of returning to the grand monde of Dublin, to deal with various curates and vicars, and to “correct allcorruptions...

Kirk’s most popular book

by | Aug 28, 2012

What was Russell Kirk’s most popular book during his lifetime? Perhaps surprisingly, it is the novel, Old House of Fear, which the New York Times called “a grandly satisfactory tale of vivid adventure.” Eerdmans released a new edition in 2007, and this morally weighty...

To College Students Considering a Course in American Poetry

by | Aug 28, 2012

I dwell in Possibility — Emily Dickinson Those who attend or are about to attend college may be surprised todiscover the confluence and influence of great poetry written in English at the beginning of the last century. Whether you agree or disagree with the often dark...

The Bookman goes back to school

by | Aug 28, 2012

The University Bookman has long had a focus on education. Indeed, the archive reveals numerous reviews of college and high-school textbooks, and of course our founder Russell Kirk wrote often on education. As we approach the beginning of another school year, we asked...