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.

Britain at the Turning Point

“A major theme that runs through Allport’s study is the shifting equilibrium of power relations between the United States and Britain. The war demonstrated that, as British power and resources dwindled, Britain became dependent on material and financial supplies from the United States.”

Shakespeare Forever

“…in his rich and thorough exploration of not only Shakespeare’s thoughts but also the course of Western thinking, David Womersley demonstrates that ideas do matter, and that Shakespeare is bigger than the harsh but ultimately timid emotions of our age.”

The Innocence of Imagination

“…the innocence that Blake’s poetry sings of is the awe, wonder, and imagination of a child who can conceive of boundless relationships with everything from a flower or butterfly to sister, brother, mother, and father. ‘Growing up,’ Vernon writes in addressing Blake’s poetic philosophy of innocence and imagination, ‘need not mean losing innocence and wonder.’ In fact, a mature innocence that can blend realism with imaginative creativity is key to a good and joyful life.”

A Madisonian Lament

A Republic No More: Big Government and the Rise of American Political Corruption by Jay Cost. Encounter Books, 2015. Hardcover, 393 pages, $28.This Madisonian lament might have been written as early as the 1790s and the battle over the constitutionality of the First...

Books in Little: The Effort of Mystery

The Operation of Grace: Further Essays on Art, Faith, and Mystery by Gregory Wolfe. Cascade Books, 2016. Paperback, 224 pages, $25. “Mystery thus lies at the intersection where reason, intuition, and imagination meet and only the both/and language of paradox seems...

The Habsburgs, a Reconsideration

The Habsburg Empire: A New History by Pieter M. Judson. Belknap Press, 2016. Hardcover, 592 pages, $35. The Habsburg Monarchy has long been seen as an outdated empire doomed to fail. To the Central European societies it sheltered before 1914, it may have had a cosy...

The Limits (and Misuse) of Air Power

The Bombers and the Bombed: Allied Air War Over Europe, 1940–1945. By Richard Overy. New York: Viking, 2013. Paperback, 592 pages, $18.In 1938, as war clouds gathered, America's commander in chief, President Franklin Roosevelt met in November with an ad hoc group to...

Spring 2016 Newsletter

The Spring 2016 issue of the Kirk Center’s newsletter, Permanent Things, is now available for download. This issue features reports of participation in a liberal–conservative summit held by the Kirk Center and the Hauenstein Center, recent seminars, and a profile of a...

A Return to the Thought-Murders

Ravelstein, by Saul Bellow. Viking, 2000. 233 pages.Ravelstein, Saul Bellow’s roman à clef about the last years of philosopher-provocateur Allan Bloom, may be the best post-9/11 novel published in the year 2000. Ravelstein has as many virtues as its subject has...

Last Scholastic Standing

Neo-Scholastic Essays by Edward Feser. St. Augustine’s Press, 2015. Paperback, 392 pages, $26. Reviewed by Ryan Shinkel   When the Prodigal Son decided to auction off his inheritance, his half of the estate did not disappear. Rather, the number of owners and of...

A Partial Introduction to Black Conservatism

Black Conservatism: Essays in Intellectual and Political History edited by Peter Eisenstadt. Routledge, 2015. Paperback, 328 pages, $55. Black Conservatism, a collection edited by Peter Eisenstadt, is an introduction to the lives of lesser-known figures who can be...

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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