The University Bookman

Reviewing Books that Build Culture

Defending the Christian Faith

“In 100 Tough Questions For Catholics: Common Obstacles To Faith Today… David G. Bonagura, Jr. gives bite-sized answers to dozens of big questions about the faith.”

Geopolitics and the Making of the Modern World

“Brands’s book should find a ready audience among those interested in developments in the international scene over the last century. It is particularly effective in dealing with the threat that China’s emerging power and influence pose to the West today…”

The Context for Human Dignity

“While the twentieth century was still sporadically marked by remnants of Christian influence and dominance, the twenty-first has seen the final divorce of the secular and sacred, and the consequences are evident. What Leo XIII warned of, the evils he battled, have been let loose, paradigmatically captured by Artificial Intelligence which poorly imitates and devalues that which makes us essentially human… We would do well then to read Hittinger’s book in reflecting on how to face these challenges.”

Between Greatness and Hubris 

“At the core of [the book] is the notion that while America is an exceptional nation, we are not immune from the perils that beset past countries and empires.”

Hoffer and the True Believers

The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements by Eric Hoffer. Perennial Classics, 1960, 2010. Paperback, 192 pages, $15. PEDRO BLAS GONZÁLEZ The American philosopher Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) is a rare thinker. Hoffer is a philosopher in the classic sense...

What Did the Declaration Declare?

The Heart of the Declaration: The Founders’ Case for an Activist Government by Steve Pincus. Yale University Press, 2016. Hardcover, 207 pages, $26. GLENN A. MOOTS Steve Pincus’s The Heart of the Declaration promises a “new perspective” on the Founders and the intent...

Degrees of Uselessness

A Practical Education: Why Liberal Arts Majors Make Great Employees by Randall Stross. Redwood Press / Stanford University Press, 2017. Hardcover, 291 pages, $25. KEVIN P. SHIELDS In today’s business culture of globalization and specialization a traditional liberal...

Good Music and Christian Music

Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music? Larry Norman and the Perils of Christian Rock by Gregory Alan Thornbury. Convergent Books, 2018. Hardcover, 292 pages. $26. MARK HIJLEH Around 1542, Martin Luther complained, “Why is it that we have so many fine poems and...

The Religion of Human Rights

The Debasement of Human Rights: How Politics Sabotage the Ideal of Freedom by Aaron Rhodes. Encounter Books, 2018. Hardcover, 280 pages, $28. Addison Del Mastro The Debasement of Human Rights, by human rights scholar and activist Aaron Rhodes, is really two books: one...

Vandenberg in Full: Babbitt No More

Arthur Vandenberg: The Man in the Middle of the American Century by Hendrik Meijer. University of Chicago Press, 2017. Hardcover, 448 pages, $35. JON K. LAUCK From the Civil War until the World War II era the American Midwest region was central to American life, as...

Not Just Another World War Two Book

The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won by Victor Davis Hanson. Basic Books, 2017. Hardcover, 720 pages, $40. DAVID DE GREGORIO During a fireside chat on February 23, 1942, President Roosevelt asked his radio audience to follow along on...

The Naked Emperors

Jews Queers Germans: A Novel/History by Martin Duberman. Seven Stories Press, 2017. Paperback, 384 pages, $20. EVE TUSHNET Martin Duberman, in his recent “novel/history” Jews Queers Germans, rarely describes clothing. He describes, instead, physical attractiveness—the...

Why We Need Liverpool

WILLIAM ANTHONY HAY While traveling with Tsar Alexander and the allied army campaigning against Napoleon as Britain’s ambassador in 1813, the Earl of Aberdeen remarked that “the heroes we read of at a distance with respect dwindle into minor figures at a near...

The Book Gallery

A collection of conversations with Bookman editor Luke C. Sheahan and writers and authors of imagination and erudition.

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