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.

William F. Buckley Jr.: Literary Figure 

“…the American public intellectual might best be appreciated as a literary figure. Producing about 350,000 words for publication yearly at the peak of his career, Buckley was never at a loss for what to say or how to say it.”

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.”

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.”

Buckley and Edwards: The Titan of Conservatism and His Titan of a Biographer

“By examining the major individual intellectual influences in Buckley’s life, Edwards is able to organically put together the various strands and ideas that became known as ‘fusionism’ without a lengthy or pedantic philosophical explanation.”

Robert Nisbet’s The Social Philosophers Revisited: Conservative Pluralism versus the Mania for Unity

“…Nisbet shows that freedom and nobility (or excellence) can only survive when civic and social pluralism allows authentic human individuality and real (as opposed to ideologically-induced) community ample room to flourish.”

Of Human Nature and the Obligations of the State

Symposium: Citizen, Community, and Welcoming the Stranger By Bruce Frohnen We all share the same God-given nature. Along with that nature comes the right to be treated accordingly—that is, in accordance with our being, and our inherent, God-given dignity. Among the...

Free Minds, Free Markets, and Free People

Free Minds, Free Markets, and Free People

Symposium: Citizen, Community, and Welcoming the Stranger by Bradley J. Birzer I’m not sure when it became a “conservative” thing to oppose relatively open borders and the free migrations of peoples, especially those seeking freedom from totalitarian and...

Free Minds, Free Markets, and Free People

We Want Workers, But We Must Form American Citizens

Symposium: Citizen, Community, and Welcoming the Stranger by Richard M. Reinsch II America’s more open approach to widespread immigration is faltering, the support for it eroded by our low-growth economy. For too many, the pie seems to be shrinking, with those at the...

Universal and Territorial: The American Republic

Symposium: Citizen, Community, and Welcoming the Stranger by Peter Augustine LawlerFrom my view, the two classic sources are G. K. Chesterton and Orestes Brownson. What Chesterton, our friendly and endlessly ironic English critic, saw in America was “the romance of...

Free Minds, Free Markets, and Free People

The Proxy War

Symposium: Citizen, Community, and Welcoming the Stranger by Daniel McCarthyThe fight over immigration is a proxy war. The absolute number of immigrants to be welcomed into the country is only a secondary question: the primary question is how that number should be...

Not Lucian’s Lucian

Lucian’s Dialogues of the Gods, translated by H. & F. Fowler & W. Tooke, edited by Nicholas Jeeves. PDR Press, 2016. Paperback, 149 pages, $14.Woe to the great comic authors of the ancient world, none of whom would be terribly good sources for a Boy Scouts of...

The Future of France

Faire by François Fillon. Albin Michel, 2015. Paper, 313 pages. Vaincre le totalitarisme Islamique by François Fillon. Albin Michel, 2016. Paper, 155 pages.Less than three weeks after Donald Trump was elected president, longtime French politician François Fillon won...

The Book Gallery

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