The University Bookman

Reviewing Books that Build Culture

Watch James Panero of the New Criterion discuss “The Urbanity of Russell Kirk” at the 2025 Gerald Russello Memorial Lecture.

The Urbanity of Russell Kirk

“The urban fabric must also be mended and darned through continuous upkeep. The city is not yours to experiment. From Russell to Russello, our ancestral spirits cast their shadows whether or not we choose to observe the city of god in the cities of men.”

Marxism and the Rising Generation

“Gonzalez and Gorka have performed an important service in bringing together a wide range of fact and theory and in establishing a coherent line stretching directly from Marx through many important figures to the present day.”

Cracking the Code to Civilization

“In a world flooded with online influencers, ‘red pill’ rhetoric, and algorithmic posturing, Newell offers something older, wiser, and far superior: a code of manliness rooted in the Western tradition of virtue, character, and service. His message is that true manliness is not a pose or performance; it is the integration of moral and intellectual excellence, what he calls ‘the manly heart.’”

France and the Problem of Abstraction

“…French people’s love for ideas, indeed for ideology, often puts them at odds with the pragmatic requisites of a mature democracy and with reality itself. France is, as she very aptly puts it, ‘a country of dreamers who fall into melancholy when reality catches up with them.’ But far from being merely a psychological explanation for French unhappiness, this idealism is the key to a political understanding of our complicated relationship with the very principle of democracy.”

The Necessity for a General Culture

“What Does Culture Mean?” From America’s British Culture, pp. 1–3 This slim book is a summary account of the culture that the people of the United States have inherited from Britain. Sometimes this is called the Anglo-Saxon culture—although it is not simply English,...

The Auroras of Helen Vendler

The Auroras of Helen Vendler

Helen Vendler’s The Ocean, the Bird, and the Scholar opens with a twelve-page account of her life as a critic, of a life well-lived with strong inner imperatives. At issue is her claim that she is less what a typical scholar is thought to be.

The Cinema of Failure

The Cinema of Failure

Terrence Malick is American cinema’s one Christian artist and he has now reached his most productive years, his Social Security years. His four recent movies, The Tree of Life (2011), To the Wonder (2012),

Feeding the Little Platoons

Feeding the Little Platoons

Frederick the Great observed that his army marched on its stomach. If we aim to civilize, not conquer, what should we feed Burke’s little platoons? At her first dinner party, Agnes Jekyll entertained John Ruskin, Edward Burne-Jones, and Robert Browning. This is a bit...

The ‘Woke’ History of Democracy

The ‘Woke’ History of Democracy

Toward Democracy: The Struggle for Self-Rule in European and American Thought by James T. Kloppenberg. Oxford University Press, 2016. Hardcover, 912 pages, $35. James Kloppenberg has produced an important artifact of contemporary intellectual life. Conservative...

What Exactly Do We Agree On?

What Exactly Do We Agree On?

“Oh, you snuck in so quietly,” she says, hurrying to help you find your name tag in a pile on a table in the hall of the University Club’s second floor. You are late, and so ascertain which door will let you in at the back and not the front by the speakers before you...

Saving What Is Lost

Saving What Is Lost

Five hundred years before Christ walked on earth Euripides was writing dramatic lines for Hecuba, Queen of Troy, in his Trojan Women. Thinking herself betrayed by the gods, she refuses them worship, yet as she grieves the death of her son, she utters a pagan attempt at a prayer:…

The Book Gallery

A collection of conversations with Bookman editor Luke C. Sheahan and writers and authors of imagination and erudition. Click on the icon in the upper right corner of the video to see more episodes in this series or check out our YouTube page.

Cracking the Code to Civilization
@CliffordBates12 on "The Code of Man: Love, Courage, Pride, Family, Country" (2nd Edition) by @waller_newell

Marxism and the Rising Generation
Jeffrey Folks on "NextGen Marxism: What It Is and How to Combat It" by @Gundisalvus and Katharine Cornell Gorka @EncounterBooks

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