The University Bookman
Reviewing Books that Build Culture
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Kirktober 2025: James Panero and Adam Simon on the Haunted House
October 28, 2025
On Tuesday, October 28, at 6:00 PM, you are invited to join University Bookman editor Luke Sheahan, Hollywood screenwriter Adam Simon, and New Criterion executive editor James Panero, as they explore the theme of the haunted house in gothic literature and its relationship to conservative thought and imagination.
Register for this free webinar here.
The Duty to Rewrite History
Schlesinger: The Imperial Historian by Richard Aldous. W.W. Norton, 2017. Hardcover, 486 pages, $30. John C. Chalberg Early on in his magisterial biography of an “imperial historian,” biographer Richard Aldous asks a question that he never really answers: Was Arthur...
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...
The Book Gallery
A collection of conversations with Bookman editor Luke C. Sheahan and writers and authors of imagination and erudition.
Today is the 4th anniversary of @ubookman editor Gerald Russello. Please pray for him.
@KirkCenter is sponsoring its annual Russello Lecture on 12/8 at FordhamU in NYC. @JamesPanero to speak on Russell Kirk's "urbanity." More info and registration here:
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