The University Bookman

Reviewing Books that Build Culture

Join friends of the Bookman in New York City on December 8, 2025 for the Gerald Russello Memorial Lecture.

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.”

How to Love What is Permanent

“Throughout the book, Gibbs pleads with his readers that we not only think of the soul in terms of salvation but also in terms of health. Good taste won’t save one’s soul. But it will nourish the soul and incline the soul towards virtue much more than the bad taste we will acquire from mediocre things.”

Personalism in the Age of AI

“Personalism is a philosophical movement that places the human person at the center of inquiry, affirming the inherent dignity, value, and uniqueness of each individual. While it spans both religious and secular traditions, its common thread is a commitment to defending the irreducible reality of the person in an age increasingly shaped by systems, technologies, and abstractions.”

Christopher Dawson and Pluralism

“In particular, I want to examine three aspects of Dawson’s thought: his conclusion that cultures, especially Western culture, historically have been pluralist; his contention that a pluralism of cultures preserves a sphere of freedom from dominant modern ideologies that would eliminate that freedom; and finally, Dawson’s conviction that a pluralist world represents a new opportunity for evangelization.”

In the Ruins, Hope

The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation by Rod Dreher. Sentinel, 2017. Hardcover, 272 pages, $25.Rod Dreher has been calling for Christians to heal themselves, their churches, and their communities, for most of his adult life. One...

Elites and the Future of France

Le crépuscule de la France d’en haut by Christophe Guilluy. Flammarion, 2016. Paper, 253 pages, $45. Reviewed by Eamon Moynihan The year 2017 is the two hundredth anniversary of the publication of the classic work by British financier David Ricardo, On the Principles...

Peter Augustine Lawler, RIP

Peter Augustine Lawler, RIP

Peter Lawler was not a Southern Gentleman. But he was a southerner and he was, in every important respect, a gentleman. Kind, courteous, and insistent that public discourse and private interactions both be conducted with decency and civility, he earned many friends in...

Lecture on Kirk’s Fiction

In April the Kirk Center hosted Jeffrey Dennis Pearce, a history teacher and the creator and editor of Ghostly Kirk, a web page dedicated to the ghostly fiction of Russell Kirk. Pearce gave a lecture on “Virtue in Two Ghostly Tales of Russell Kirk,” which was later...

‘It Was the End of Solo Singing’

The Cypresses Believe in God by José María Gironella. Ignatius, [1953] 2005. Paper, 900 pages.When Eric Hobsbawm suggested that the period 1914–1991 could be called “the short twentieth century,” he not only defined an era but separated it from our own. Few conflicts...

Thirteen Ways of Looking at Wallace Stevens

The Whole Harmonium: The Life of Wallace Stevens by Paul Mariani Simon & Schuster, 2016. Hardcover, 483 pages, $30. When Wallace Stevens was seventy-two, he received the Robert Frost Gold Medal from the Poetry Society of America. In his remarks, he gave an ethical...

American Imperialism and Its Discontents

The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of the American Empire by Stephen Kinzer. Henry Holt, 2017. Hardcover, 306 pages, $28. As the subtitle suggests, this is a book about personality and politics, a group biography with a large cast, including...

A Fine Closet of Curiosities

In Search of Sir Thomas Browne: The Life and Afterlife of the Seventeenth Century’s Most Inquiring Mind by Hugh Aldersey-Williams. Norton, 2015. Hardcover, 352 pages, $27.Reading Sir Thomas Browne’s unique prose reminds me of walking through the Pitt Rivers Museum in...

The Book Gallery

A collection of conversations with Bookman editor Luke C. Sheahan and writers and authors of imagination and erudition.

There's still time to sign up to join the @KirkCenter for the McLellan Prizes Gala in DC on November 19 https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/2025-mclellan-prizes

In honor of longtime @ubookman editor Gerald J. Russello, enjoy this Russello Classic, "Christopher Dawson and Pluralism."

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