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.”

Limits and the Good Life

“…David McPherson has written an argument for the importance of ‘recognizing proper limits in human life.’ He focuses on the ‘limiting virtues’ of ‘humility, reverence, moderation, contentment, neighborliness, and loyalty.’”

We’re All Epicureans Now

“…as Zubia argues convincingly, Hume’s political vision is not entirely modern but resurrects and reinforces ideas native to the ancient Epicurean framework of empirical skepticism. Hume’s vision of politics, mankind, and truth itself was deeply shaped by Epicureanism, which has, in turn, shaped the modern imagination.”

The Rise of the World Builders

“Maçães’s literal interpretation proposes that the ‘geo’ in ‘geopolitics’ takes on new, technological, meaning, insofar as the earth alone is no longer the surface or space of kinetic encounter; rather, ‘this new battlefield is synthetic or virtual’—comprising the realms of technology, energy, trade, and finance—and ‘the way to win is to reprogram the system, to step outside the game world.'”

We’re in This Together

We’re in This Together

SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard. W.W. Norton & Company, 2015. Paperback, 608 pages, $17.95. Reviewed by Sarah Ruden For a book with so many episodes of civil uproar in it, and so many accounts of both everyday and exceptional brutality, SPQR is...

Mistaking Defeat for Victory?

Defending Faith: The Politics of the Christian Conservative Legal Movement by Daniel Bennett. University Press of Kansas, 2017. Hardcover, 224 pages, $35.One of the most compelling features of Daniel Bennett’s recent book, Defending Faith: The Politics of the...

The High Price of Duty

The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics by Mark Lilla. HarperCollins, 2017. Hardcover, 143 pages, $25.The publishing logic behind The Once and Future Liberal is impeccable. Defeated and divided after the 2016 election, liberals urgently asked themselves...

The Problem with Liberalism

The Retreat of Western Liberalism by Edward Luce. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2017. Hardcover, 226 pages, $24. Can liberals save liberalism “from itself?” Edward Luce offers this question in his new book The Retreat of Western Liberalism, but situates it as part of an...

Great Minds and Humble Servants

A conversation with Philipp Rosemann. The Bookman would like to welcome Philipp Rosemann, who, after teaching at the University of Dallas for over twenty years, was just appointed to the Chair of Philosophy at the National University of Ireland in Maynooth. He spoke...

What Happened to Blackford Oakes?

A Man and His Presidents: The Political Odyssey of William F. Buckley Jr. by Alvin S. Felzenberg. Yale University Press, 2017. Hardcover, 417 pages, $35. Reviewed by William F. Meehan III Of the memorable lines about William F. Buckley Jr., spoken on the occasion of...

William F. Buckley, Jr. and His Presidents

A Man and His Presidents: The Political Odyssey of William F. Buckley Jr. by Alvin S. Felzenberg. Yale University Press, 2017. Hardcover, 417 pages, $35. What more can possibly be said of William F. Buckley, Jr. that he or his biographers have not already said or...

Remember the Walking Dead

The Dead March: A History of the Mexican-American War by Peter Guardino. Harvard University Press, 2017. Hardcover, 512 pages, $40.The Mexican-American War (1846–1848) is one of the least-remembered conflicts in American history despite being one of the most...

Untethered Revolution

The Expanding Blaze: How the American Revolution Ignited the World, 1775–1848 by Jonathan Israel. Princeton University Press, 2017. Hardcover, 768 pages, $40. We know what partisanship is without invoking Aristotle. We see it all around us, especially after collective...

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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