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.

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.”

After Mansfield

“In his most recent work… Mansfield presents a rich and nuanced portrait of the development of modern political thought.”

How Charlotte Brontë Became Charlotte Brontë

“Graham Watson’s biography of Charlotte is a judiciously researched and well-written overview of the final years of Charlotte’s life… readers will learn just how central Charlotte was to the literary establishment that both praised and scorned her.”

Our Grandchildren May Be Chilly

Even on the sheltered southern side of our old house, last night, our outside thermometer’s mercury retreated down into its cup—which means that the temperature was more than 30 degrees below zero. With insulation and natural-gas heat, this didn’t bother us. But not...

The Mechanical Jacobin

Mr. Henry Ford II recently remarked that as other countries obtain automobiles on the scale of ownership in the United States, their culture will approximate to ours. This is too true. And other lands lack the space and adaptability of America, so that the popular...

Planting Trees

This spring my man George and I planted more than two thousand saplings upon my infertile ancestral acres. To plant a tree nowadays—particularly an oak or an elm, on badly watered land—is an act of hope and faith. Edmund Burke, writing at the inception of the...

Planting

Only a man who remembers his debt to his ancestors is likely to plant for posterity. —Russell Kirk

Ruminations of a Small-Scale Forester

As I hope nearly everybody knows already, our American woodlands continue to diminish alarmingly. It is not only the big forests of the Pacific slopes, harvested by the great lumbering companies, that dwindle, or the swamp forests of the Gulf states and lower South:...

Turn Down Your Thermostat and Throw Away Your Gadgets

Strict rationing of fuel oil and perhaps of gasoline is an immediate prospect. Even were not America’s supplies of petroleum threatened by the war in the Levant, we still would be short of oil for this winter—and short of natural gas, too, and of electrical current....

Meditations at the Dump

I envy my stepmother. For she is chairwoman of the town dump of Baldwin, Michigan. This is by virtue of her recent election to the village board; also she has been appointed to the high dignity of chairwoman of parks and recreation. But I’ll take my recreation at the...

Conserving Nature in This Land

As I wander from state to state, speechifying on everything under the sun, I find that two subjects are most popular with lecture-audiences this year: sex and conservation. The former has always been with us, but the latter topic has taken on urgency, what with the...

The McKinley Mystery

President McKinley: Architect of the American Century by Robert W. Merry. Simon & Schuster, 2017. Hardcover, 624 pages, $35.This biography’s bold subtitle announces Robert W. Merry’s revisionist project. In the popular imagination, McKinley is a nondescript,...

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.

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