The University Bookman
Reviewing Books that Build Culture
Taking the Road Less Traveled
“Rattelle’s lyrical poems… echo Frost both in obvious ways and in their inventiveness within the constraints of form.”
To Recover Is to Return
“The decline [Esolen] has diagnosed is not merely a shift in cultural tastes or even a change in values; it is a near total loss of what it means to be human.
Gerald Russello and the Art of Memory
This essay was delivered as a memorial lecture at Fordham University, New York, on November 15, 2023.
Claiming the Classical Tradition
“The book stands as a powerful argument that the Classical Tradition has been essential to the lived Black experience in the United States for four centuries. And consequently, the book asserts that any attempts to deny such a connection severs Black Americans from a heritage to which they owe much and from which they will find a treasure trove of wisdom.”
The Definitive Guide to the Irish in the Modern World
“Connolly has written the definitive study of Irish immigration throughout the world.”
The Geography of the Peace at Eighty
“…Spykman’s book was meant to educate American policymakers and citizens on the permanent geopolitical factors that should guide U.S. foreign policy into the future. Some of Spykman’s ideas resonate in 2024.”
Russell Kirk and Japan: Enamored by the Dead
“Kirk’s multifaceted persona, blending serious conservative thought with a penchant for the mysterious, underscores the complexity of his intellectual legacy, which I continue to try to unravel even today.”
Comments on Hiro Aida’s Speech on Russell Kirk and Japan
“But Kirk’s work and, more importantly, his approach remain eternally relevant, not just here in his home country, but as Hiro has shown, in countries and cultures very different from Kirk’s.”
Is Life Worth Living?
“Both on authority and through his own insights and experiences, Kirk had come to understand that there exists a realm of being beyond this temporal world and that a mysterious providence works in human affairs—that man is made for eternity. Such knowledge had been consolation and compensation for sorrow.”
The Book Gallery
A collection of conversations with Bookman editor Luke C. Sheahan and writers and authors of imagination and erudition.