About The University Bookman
For six decades, The University Bookman, founded by Russell Kirk, has sought to redeem the time by identifying and discussing those books that diagnose the modern age and support the renewal of culture and the common good. Currently published online, the Bookman continues its mission of examining our times through the prism of what Kirk called the Permanent Things.
Jeffrey O. Nelson, Publisher and Editor-at-Large
Luke C. Sheahan, Editor
David Bonagura, Religion Editor
Darrell Falconburg, Humanities Editor
Isabel Dobbs, Managing Editor
Alvino-Mario Fantini, European Editor
Gerald J. Russello, Editor (2005–2021)†
About the Editor
Luke Sheahan is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Duquesne University, a Non-Resident Scholar in the Program for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society (PRRUCS) at the University of Pennsylvania, and a Contributing Editor at Law and Liberty. He researches the intersection of First Amendment rights and political theory. Sheahan’s scholarly articles and reviews have appeared in Humanitas, The Political Science Reviewer, and Perspectives on Political Science and he has lectured widely on religious liberty, freedom of speech, and freedom of association. His popular writing has appeared in Law and Liberty, Real Clear Civics, and other venues. He is author of Why Associations Matter: The Case for First Amendment Pluralism (2020). Sheahan is also working on a manuscript tentatively titled Pluralism and Toleration: Difference, Justice, and the Social Group.
Sheahan received a PhD and MA in political theory from the Catholic University of America and a B.S. in political science from the Honors College at Oregon State University. From 2016-2018 he was a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Political Science at Duke University and from 2018-2019 he was Associate Director and Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Freedom Project, an academic institute at Wellesley College. Sheahan is a five-time recipient of the Humane Studies Fellowship from the Institute for Humane Studies, a 2014 recipient of the Richard M. Weaver Fellowship from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI), a 2015-2016 recipient of a dissertation research fellowship from the Catholic University of America, and a 2018 recipient of the Leonard Liggio Memorial Fellowship.
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Read More Bookman Articles
Joseph Story and the Politics of the Early Republic
“the central theme of Clarke’s study is the extent to which the case for the federal common law rests on a thoroughly nationalist understanding of the American founding and union. At a basic level, a common law requires a common people. But even more importantly, Story needed a narrative of consolidated American nationhood to fill the yawning gap in his theory—that there was never any direct, national adoption of the common law.”
Listening to the Law, and Now Speaking It
“Justice Barrett thus roots an originalist mode of judging in history and tradition. Judging rightly is an inherently conservative endeavor: the judiciary’s very claim to review the work of the political branches draws each political act back to past writing, either in the Constitution or the United States Code. Keeping our politics within the scope of ordered liberty—and most importantly a written text—makes the judiciary the branch that preserves and tempers us in the face of the revolutionary instinct to throw off the so-called ‘dead hand of the past.’”
One Man’s Journey to Faith
“Regardless of one’s beliefs, Charles Murray’s [book] must be acknowledged as a notable work. It is a heartfelt account of one man’s (actually, one couple’s) acceptance of religious faith and of Christianity in particular, and while not a work of scholarship, it is informed by extensive reading and decades of thought. Like the work of C.S. Lewis, which inspired Murray’s turn toward Christianity, it is written in an admirably direct and accessible style.”