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.”

Virgil, Guide to the Perplexed

The Aeneid by Virgil, translated by David Ferry. University of Chicago Press, 2017. Hardcover, 437 pages, $35.C. S. Lewis once said of Virgil’s Aeneid that “No man who has once read it with full perception remains an adolescent.” That was certainly true of my first...

Lectures on What Can’t Be Taught

Literature Class by Julio Cortázar. New Directions, 2017. Paperback, 280 pages, $19. The question of whether or not creative writing is something that can be taught isn’t a perennial one, at least not explicitly or directly. The American MFA program, with its tens of...

Mark Twain, Huckster

How Not to Get Rich: The Financial Misadventures of Mark Twain by Alan Pell Crawford. Houghton Mifflin, 2017. Hardcover, 240 pages, $27.How Not to Get Rich: I could write a book on that subject! Happily, Alan Pell Crawford, author mostly recently of the thoughtful and...

Organizing Victory

Stanton: Lincoln’s War Secretary by Walter Stahr. Simon & Schuster, 2017. Hardcover, 768 pages, $35. Reviewed by Kyle Sammin The Civil War is often remembered from the point of view of the soldiers. Their stories of strategic genius and individual heroism on both...

Budziszewski Lecture in Grand Rapids

The Society for Law and Culture is joining with the Christian Legal Society in sponsoring a lecture by J. Budziszewski titled “Natural Law: Why and So What?” The event will be held at Cooley Law School in Grand Rapids, MI, on Thursday, November 2, 2017, beginning at...

Which Alexander?

The First European: A History of Alexander in the Age of Empire by Pierre Briant, Translated by Nicholas Elliott. Harvard University Press, 2017. Hardcover, 496 pages, $35. After Alexander the Great died, a wilderness of legends about the boy-conqueror flourished. In...

Reclaiming Corrington

The Southern Philosopher: Collected Essays of John William Corrington edited by Allen Mendenhall. University of North Georgia Press, 2017. Paperback, $30. I’m guessing it was spring of 1991; Andrew Lytle was on my college campus to receive an honorary Doctor of...

Attack of the Theses

Remembering the Reformation: An Inquiry into the Meanings of Protestantism by Thomas Albert Howard. Oxford University Press, 2016. Hardcover, 216 pages, $40. Even if a person somehow did not know 2017 marks the quinquennial of the Protestant Reformation, she soon...

Sharing Nixon’s Ear

Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever by Patrick J. Buchanan. Crown Forum, 2017. Hardcover, 436 pages, $30.To read Pat Buchanan’s memoir of his tour of duty during President Richard Nixon’s White House wars...

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.

"Delsol’s analysis stands out for the breadth of its perspective. Her essay covers topics as varied as corporatism, the French love for status and strikes, immigration, religion and secularism, populism and the role of intellectuals, Jacobinism, and the EU..."

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

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