The University Bookman

Reviewing Books that Build Culture

What the American Revolution Secured: Order, Justice, and Freedom

Throughout the semiquincentennial year celebrating America’s independence, The University Bookman will invite a range of writers and speakers to contribute to a series drawing upon Russell Kirk’s work on the American Revolution and the constitutional order it secured.

Who Are the Enemies of Academic Freedom?

“…the authors’ efforts to defend free speech and academic freedom ultimately fall flat. This is because, for all their handwringing about the red-state barbarians at the gates, Chemerinsky and Gillman cannot or will not see what their own argument and their own evidence of student, faculty, and administrator behavior show to even a mildly attentive reader: The greatest enemies of higher learning in America remain within the walls.”

Who’s the Furious One? 

“One also comes away from this book with the sense that her allegedly fit-to-be-tied subjects have had no legitimate reason to be concerned or troubled, much less furious, about anything at all in the American body politic. The reigning orthodoxy of liberal pluralism, however that has been packaged and repackaged, apparently had been—and deserves to continue to be—the prevailing story of life in America before, during, and well after what she hopes will soon prove to be little more than a briefly successful outburst on the part of the MAGA right.”

A New Introduction to the Austrian School

“After discussing Menger, the authors go on to present the ideas of subsequent major figures in the history of the Austrian school, including Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, Friedrich von Wieser, Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Israel Kirzner, and Murray Rothbard.”

Leisure and the Lost Ascent 

Leisure and the Lost Ascent 

“…leisure cannot be achieved when it is sought as a means to an end, even if that end is something as noble as the salvation of Western civilization. The ultimate root of leisure, divine worship, is beyond the reach of the human will. Though leisure requires willing openness to God’s grace, even that openness is itself a grace.”

William F. Buckley’s Cold War

William F. Buckley’s Cold War

“The conservative’s vocation is to remind the world that the soul was made for eternity, not bondage in barbed wire. We have the examples of great statesmen, writers, and thinkers to inspire our efforts at defending a humane freedom. The example of Buckley’s life and work, which truly culminated in our last true victory over totalitarianism, is one of the best conservatives could look towards now.”

Climate Realism in an Alarmed Age

Climate Realism in an Alarmed Age

“Their authors highlight what is known, unknown, and potentially unknowable in explaining the role of the sun, oceans and ocean currents, and clouds… We also learn of unintended consequences, neglected variables, variables that resist quantification, and a remarkable tendency toward reductionist thinking on all sides of the debate.”

Bring Back the Virtues, Medieval Style

Bring Back the Virtues, Medieval Style

“What does it mean to be made whole in a world that is deeply broken…? This begins with a humbling awareness not only of the virtues that we may realize we lack but also of vices in which, alas, we may abound. And so, Hamman pairs in each chapter a vice and a virtue that counteracts it along with beautiful and sometimes unexpected (to our modern imagination) images of these virtues and vices in Medieval literature and art.”

Is Religion Becoming Obsolete?

Is Religion Becoming Obsolete?

“It’s obvious that the meaning, function, and practice of religion is changing in the United States. But how exactly? And what does this change mean for the future of traditional forms of religion?”

Still Having Trouble with Gender

Still Having Trouble with Gender

“…Byrne seeks to correct the dominant academic foolishness by clearing away the intellectual weeds that have overgrown the topics of sex and gender. He largely succeeds, but he then provides little guidance as to how we should live with sex and gender.”

Eric Voegelin’s Later Thought

Eric Voegelin’s Later Thought

“Drawing on Aristotle and Aquinas, Voegelin diagnosed the ideologue’s mind as one that wishes to objectify the world rather than live in a state of participatory reality with the divine. Conversation with ideologues becomes impossible because they perceive reality as something to dominate and manipulate rather than to understand and comprehend.”

Mark Twain Revisited

Mark Twain Revisited

“An undisguised cosmopolitan who never wanted to forget his boyhood in the American heartland, Mark Twain was a walking—and strolling—contradiction.”

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.

Subscribe and receive the Bookman weekly in your inbox.

* indicates required

Shop through Creed and Culture Publishing