The University Bookman
Reviewing Books that Build Culture
What’s Good for GM is Good for Marcuse
Conservatives Against Capitalism: From the Industrial Revolution to Globalization by Peter Kolozi. Columbia University Press, 2017. Hardcover, 250 pages. $60. GRANT HAVERS Right-wing opposition to capitalism is well-known in European politics. As Marx once noted, the...
What Punishment? Whose Community?
The Machinery of Criminal Justice by Stephanos Bibas. Oxford University Press, 2012, 2015. Paperback, 320 pages, $29. CHARLES FAIN LEHMAN It is rare to see, especially from the right, a critique of the modern American criminal justice system that focuses not just on...
The Judges’ Law Book: A Major Study of John Selden
John Selden and the Western Political Tradition by Ofir Haivry. Cambridge University Press, 2017. Hardcover, 518 pages, $100. W. BRADFORD LITTLEJOHN Asenior scholar once quipped to me when I was weighing topics for my doctoral work: “the goal of a historical doctoral...
Everything You Think You Know About Fascism Is Wrong
The Age of Secularization by Augusto Del Noce, translated by Carlo Lancellotti. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2017. Paperback, 304 pages, $35. Scott Beauchamp There’s a great tradition of Italian philosopher-historians who work by reverse engineering the present...
Who Is Blackford Oakes?
Buckley’s leading good guy. WILLIAM F. MEEHAN III The eleven Blackford Oakes spy novels by William F. Buckley Jr. are a significant part of his oeuvre and deserve consideration when discussing his life. What better way, then, to commemorate the ten-year anniversary of...
Rousseau’s Reactionary Disciple
Memoirs from Beyond the Grave: 1768–1800 by François-René de Chateaubriand, translated by Alex Andriesse. New York Review Books Classics, 2018. Softcover, 584 pages, $20. GREG MORRISON “Pass on now, reader; wade the river of blood that separates forever the old world,...
Trump so Far
BRUCE P. FROHNEN More than a year into his presidency, the Trump scandals continue. The “Russia conspiracy” has been shown for the fraud it always was. But one still hears about Mr. Trump’s personal vices and the crude nature of many of his public pronouncements. Some...
A Little More Crafty
Cræft: An Inquiry into the Origins and True Meaning of Traditional Crafts by Alexander Langlands. W.W. Norton & Company, 2018. Hardcover, 352 pages, $27. GRACY OLMSTEAD What does it mean to be a craftsman? To us, the word is often caught up in artistry: the...
Waltharius and the Epic Quest for Epic Poetry
Waltharius edited and translated by Abram Ring. Peeters, 2016. Paperback, 198 pages, $63. A. M. JUSTER Western literature begins with greatness on a grand scale. Homer’s magnificent epics, The Iliad and The Odyssey, created the framework and the impetus for...
The Book Gallery
A collection of conversations with Bookman editor Luke C. Sheahan and writers and authors of imagination and erudition.