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.

To Find Eyes to See

“Hren selects earnest classics that have stood the test of time—books that generations of readers have found edifying and moving. But also, in the introduction and conclusion alike, Hren returns to another key point of fiction: it doesn’t just help us see extraordinary truth, although it can. More important is that fiction gives us eyes to see the transcendence of ordinary lives, including our own.”

Rural America as It Really Is

“Harold Bell Wright, regardless of how literary tastemakers viewed him in the 1920s, is the central figure in the origin of Branson. Though denigrated by the Baldwins and H. L. Menckens of his day, Wright was one of the century’s best-selling novelists.”

The Poet Watches Birds

“Jennifer A. Hartenburg’s debut collection of poems… offers such a poetic practice of waking, attending, and caring. These are poems rich with the life of the world, flocking with birds and bees both literal and metaphorical, but also closely attentive to the quiddities of language and the motions of the soul.”

Mistaking Defeat for Victory?

by Staff | Jan 7, 2018

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

by Daniel McCarthy | Dec 31, 2017

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

by Staff | Dec 31, 2017

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

by Staff | Dec 27, 2017

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?

by William F. Meehan III | Dec 24, 2017

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

by Staff | Dec 24, 2017

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

by Timothy D. Lusch | Dec 17, 2017

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

by Scott Beauchamp | Dec 17, 2017

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...

Literature as Counterculture

by Allen Mendenhall | Dec 10, 2017

A conversation with Robert P. WaxlerRobert P. Waxler is professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and cofounder of the Changing Lives Through Literature program. AM: I’m grateful for this interview, Bob. As you know, I read and enjoyed your...

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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.

Register for our next book gallery on June 22, 2026:
Russell Kirk On America: How to Understand the Legacy of 1776