Cities, as Social Science Sees Them

Cities, as Social Science Sees Them

The Future of Cities Edited by Joel Kotkin and Ryan Streeter. American Enterprise Institute, 2022. Reviewed by Mark G. Brennan.  Those who care about the future of cities need to pay attention to Chapman University Urban Futures Fellow Joel Kotkin. The New York Times...
Upcoming Event: The Gerald Russello Memorial Lecture

Upcoming Event: The Gerald Russello Memorial Lecture

On November 15, The University Bookman and friends will hold a memorial lecture in honor of Gerald Russello, longtime editor of The University Bookman. Dr. Dermot Quinn, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies at Seton Hall University, will speak on Gerald Russello...
The Lost Art of Memento Mori

The Lost Art of Memento Mori

Meditations on Death: Preparing for Eternity By Thomas à Kempis. Translated by Fr. Robert Nixon, OSB. TAN Books, 2023. Hardcover, 88 pages, $19.95.  Reviewed by Thomas Banks. To scratch an itch of curiosity, I recently entered the word “Death” into the Amazon search...
Fundamentally Religious and Catholic

Fundamentally Religious and Catholic

Tolkien’s Faith: A Spiritual Biography by Holly Ordway. Word on Fire Academic, 2023. Hardcover, 532 pages, $ 34.95. Reviewed by Adam Schwartz. J. R. R. Tolkien famously described The Lord of the Rings as a “fundamentally religious and Catholic work.”...
A Contemporary Literary Work of the Moral Imagination

A Contemporary Literary Work of the Moral Imagination

The Professor’s Dog and Other Stories  By David B. Schock. PenUltimate, Ltd., 2022. Paperback, 155 pages, $11.95. Reviewed by Jonathan R. Eller.  David B. Schock’s wide-ranging career as a newspaper editor, filmmaker, and non-fiction author draws inspiration from a...
Must the University Be Political?

Must the University Be Political?

The Lost Promise: American Universities in the 1960s By Ellen Schrecker. University of Chicago Press, 2021. Hardcover, 616 pages, $35. Reviewed by Ethan Schrum. Should academic departments and scholarly societies issue position statements on current political matters?...
What Do Fungi Have to Do with Athens?

What Do Fungi Have to Do with Athens?

Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures By Merlin Sheldrake. Random House, 2020. Hardcover, 368 pages, $28. Reviewed by Eve Tushnet. There are fungi that hunt their prey. Fungi can communicate, trade, and defend. They...
Perspicuity at the Bar of History

Perspicuity at the Bar of History

The Obscurity of Scripture: Disputing Sola Scriptura and the Protestant Notion of Biblical Perspicuity  By Casey J. Chalk. Emmaus Road Publishing, 2023. Hardcover, 320 pages, $24.95. Reviewed by Tyler Curtis. In 1925, when John T. Scopes was on trial for teaching...
The Classically Educated Mind of W. E. B Du Bois

The Classically Educated Mind of W. E. B Du Bois

Co-Workers in the Kingdom of Culture: Classics and Cosmopolitanism in the Thought of W. E. B. Du Bois By David Withun.  Oxford University Press, 2022.  Hardcover, 256 pages, $80.00. Reviewed by Chris Butynskyi. Race, class, gender. These are three important components...
Cormac McCarthy’s Historical Literary Influences

Cormac McCarthy’s Historical Literary Influences

Science and Literature in Cormac McCarthy’s Expanding Worlds  By Bryan Giemza. Bloomsbury Academic, 2023. Hardcover, 184 pages, $100. Reviewed by Philip D. Bunn. Works of scholarship on art, literature, or poetry can take multiple forms. One form might be scholarship...