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.

Jesuits and Revolutions

“…these… reveal Carola’s gift as a novelist, reminding the reader that the great theological and ecclesiastical questions of the age were debated and decided by flesh-and-blood human beings with normal needs and emotions.”

Taking Movies Seriously, Perhaps Too Seriously

“Dalfonzo’s conception of film as a moral mirror that serves to reveal to us our lapses and failings is certainly founded on an honest and conscientious set of wishes—on that score I have no doubts. I nonetheless suspect that this hope emerges from a blurring of the formal and moral properties of art.”

The Seduction and Perils of Artificial Intelligence

“The inescapable truth is that AI is a transformative technology, even more so perhaps than were the computer and the internet. We are not even close to resolving fundamental questions such as how much autonomy we wish to grant AI and how greatly the adoption of AI will affect our freedom of choice.”

Eric Voegelin’s Later Thought

Eric Voegelin’s Later Thought

“Drawing on Aristotle and Aquinas, Voegelin diagnosed the ideologue’s mind as one that wishes to objectify the world rather than live in a state of participatory reality with the divine. Conversation with ideologues becomes impossible because they perceive reality as something to dominate and manipulate rather than to understand and comprehend.”

Mark Twain Revisited

Mark Twain Revisited

“An undisguised cosmopolitan who never wanted to forget his boyhood in the American heartland, Mark Twain was a walking—and strolling—contradiction.”

Educational Counterrevolution 

Educational Counterrevolution 

“The central thesis of the book is that the Western Christian paideia that made the American experiment in liberty and self-government possible has nearly been stamped out of the public schools.”

Political Economy Before Adam Smith

Political Economy Before Adam Smith

“…[the book] is a compilation of various tracts on the intersection of commerce and statecraft—many of which are snapshots of McCulloch’s own free-market beliefs—that serve as a compelling precursor of Smithian political economy.”

Science and Meaning: Parallel Tracks?

Science and Meaning: Parallel Tracks?

“Science is not the sort of activity that can answer the question, ‘Does life have meaning?’ To expect science to answer that question is like expecting your plumber to tell you whether installing fancier bathroom fixtures will make you happier.”

Geopolitics and the Making of the Modern World

Geopolitics and the Making of the Modern World

“Brands’s book should find a ready audience among those interested in developments in the international scene over the last century. It is particularly effective in dealing with the threat that China’s emerging power and influence pose to the West today…”

The Context for Human Dignity

The Context for Human Dignity

“While the twentieth century was still sporadically marked by remnants of Christian influence and dominance, the twenty-first has seen the final divorce of the secular and sacred, and the consequences are evident. What Leo XIII warned of, the evils he battled, have been let loose, paradigmatically captured by Artificial Intelligence which poorly imitates and devalues that which makes us essentially human… We would do well then to read Hittinger’s book in reflecting on how to face these challenges.”

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.

Kirk saw poetry, fiction, tradition, and restraint as essential to understanding America and preserving its character. In his review of "On America," @cjscalia explores Kirk’s vision of the founding, statesmanship, literature, and the enduring ideas that have shaped the republic.

The Audacious Russell Kirk
Bruce P. Frohnen reviews "On America: How to Understand the Legacy of 1776" by Russell Kirk. Edited by Michael Lucchese.

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