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.”

Words from the Hearth

“Each poem maps a path on the journey by sharing the personal and religious experiences of a young woman falling in love, getting married, and then expecting and welcoming children. As a reader who tends to prefer prose to poetry, I appreciate the narrative arc as well as the opportunity to reminisce, through Reardon’s work, on my own similar experiences. Reardon’s writing is intensely religious, elevating the seemingly mundane aspects of home life to a spiritual level. Because it draws such powerful connections, it invites readers to ponder how even the simplest details of their lives can lead to the divine.”

A Knight of the American West

“His new book is an exciting chivalric adventure and romance, while also being a contemporary American novel set in the Southwest USA. Exceptionally well written, its straightforward crafting is an encouragement to the reader who eagerly returns to its pages.”

Coming to Terms with Sherman

“…Glenn Arbery has contemporary America down cold, the more so since the cultural variations between North and South are far from being as marked as they were even fifty years ago.”

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...

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. 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.

@EvieSolheim By the way, the @KirkCenter takes literature, ethics, character formation, & cultural renewal seriously

Encourage you to participate in our @ubookman academic journal & the fellowship of our literary & academic community, enshrining what Dr. Kirk calls “the Moral Imagination”

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