The University Bookman
Reviewing Books that Build Culture
Join friends of the Bookman in New York City on December 8, 2025 for the Gerald Russello Memorial Lecture.
Sandel in China
Jason Morgan reviews Encountering China: Michael Sandel and Chinese Philosophy.
Making Silly People Uncomfortable
A conversation with the acclaimed philosopher John Gray about his most recent book and his thoughts on Christianity and the decline of liberalism.
Caddyshack and the Counterculture Takeover of American Humor
Mark Judge reviews Chris Nashawaty’s Caddyshack: The Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story and learns how American comedy was changed by the counterculture in the 1960s and 70s.
Permanent Like Achilles
Bob Dylan took Latin. Patrick J. Burns reviews Why Bob Dylan Matters, an insightful reflection on Dylan’s investment and, ultimately, his participation, in the Western literary tradition by Richard Thomas.
The (Mis)measure of Man
One way of defining “rationalism” (when the term is understood as a flaw rather than a virtue) is that it is the attempt to replace experience by technique. In his important new book, historian Jerry Muller takes on a particular species of rationalism: our modern fixation on replacing expert judgment with might be described as “the dictatorship of the quantifiable.”
Athwart Silicon Valley
There’s a phrase once heard in television commercials and now common on social media: life comes at you fast. The social media gag is often used to expose pundits who advocated position X two years ago, and now advocate position Y.
The Two Minds that Made Europe
Michael Massing’s thesis in this massive undertaking, Fatal Discord, argues that the rift between Erasmus and Luther—now some five hundred years past—defines the rippling course then taken by the Western mind.
Put In This World to Do Battle
Imaginative Conservatism will be of primary interest to fans of Russell Kirk and those interested in the history of twentieth-century conservative thought. Kirk was one of the foremost voices of American conservatism and this look into his personal correspondence is invaluable to understand the man and the movement.
Philanthropy Is Not Charity
In The Philanthropic Revolution, Jeremy Beer succeeds in his two-pronged effort to delineate charity from philanthropy, both in their actual practice and in their distinct origins, and to expose the long-ignored skeletons of philanthropy’s deep, historical closets.
The Book Gallery
A collection of conversations with Bookman editor Luke C. Sheahan and writers and authors of imagination and erudition.
