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.
An Italian Apologia for the American Electoral System
“The purpose of the book is to understand the reasons for the intricate electoral system, which has proven to be remarkably stable and orderly throughout American history. Mainly addressed to an Italian audience that is naturally less familiar with American voting, it can also be useful for Americans to understand how the whole design is ordered to secure a fair system against totalitarian democracy.”
The Centrality of Civic Virtue
“A just polity grows as we acquire a moral sense, which fosters attitudes and actions of benevolence toward others…”
Revivifying the Conservative Movement
“Roberts has perceived the deep and fundamental crisis within the American body politic, and that crisis is a spiritual crisis.”
Virtuous Living, Not Just for Philosophers
“Abela refers to both the cardinal virtues and their many subsidiary virtues as ‘super habits’ in order to tap into the popularity of recent books about the importance of habit formation.”
Irving Babbitt’s Defense of the Humanities
“…Irving Babbitt’s humanism stood in sharp contrast to the humanitarianism that often distorts and permeates humanities education today.”
Democracy and Leadership at 100: Lessons for the 21st Century
“…Russell Kirk… calls it ‘one of the few truly important works of political thought to be written by an American in the twentieth century—or, for that matter, during the past two centuries.’ He saw clearly that Babbitt’s diagnosis of the post-WWI moment was rooted in a deep understanding of timeless elements of the human condition. Moreover, because the trends Babbitt discussed in the 1920s have continued largely unabated since that time, his critique of them and prescriptions to remedy them remain salient.”
The Great Intellectual Scandal: Irving Babbitt and His Traditionalist Critics
“…Babbitt identified tendencies in Western modernity that were eroding the very foundations of civilization, including those of American constitutionalism. He also showed how in the circumstances of the modern world they might be reinforced. He explained, in particular, how a transformation of the imagination was causing disastrous moral-spiritual and cultural change and what countermeasures were needed.”
Irving Babbitt and Populism
“Good democratic leaders possess moral imagination, the ability to see life for what it is and to anticipate the path of prudence. Moreover, good leadership stems from good character that is the product of a sound inner life. Like any other form of government, democracy achieves the aspirations of civilization in proportion to its ability to produce men and women of character who concentrate on the inner life. The crisis of American democracy was, for Babbitt, a crisis of character and leadership.”
Edwards: From the Beginning of the Right
Just Right: A Life in Pursuit of Liberty By Lee Edwards. ISI Books, 2017. Hardcover, 378 pages, $29.95. Reviewed by George H. Nash. In his lively new memoir Just Right, Lee Edwards remarks that four distinct groups have molded the modern American conservative...
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A collection of conversations with Bookman editor Luke C. Sheahan and writers and authors of imagination and erudition.
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