The University Bookman
Reviewing Books that Build Culture
Watch James Panero of the New Criterion discuss “The Urbanity of Russell Kirk” at the 2025 Gerald Russello Memorial Lecture.
A Poet Aware of the Past
Most Ancient of All Splendors, by Johann Moser. Sophia Institute Press, 1989. Hardcover, 94 pages, $15. It was difficult to believe, until this book arrived at my desk, that in this fin de siècle of computers, word processors, videos, and other robots, poems still are...
An Anti-Utopian Life
Isaiah Berlin: A Life, by Michael Ignatieff. New York: Owl Books, 1999. Paper, 356pp., $16. Isaiah Berlin, who died in 1997, was that rare man of letters who was also a man of the world. If Churchill was the statesman who earned laurels as an historian, Berlin was the...
On What Is Not Found in English Departments
“English as It’s Taught” by Joseph Epstein, in A Literary Education and Other Essays. Axios Press, 2014. pages 335-40 (of 537).In A Literary Education and Other Essays is found Joseph Epstein’s 2011 review, “English as It’s Taught” in The Cambridge History of the...
A Champion of Inherited Culture
The Intemperate Professor and Other Cultural Splenetics, by Russell Kirk. Sherwood Sugden and Company, 1988. 143pp. paper, $7.95. H. L. Mencken once said that the college professor, “menaced by the timid dogmatism of the plutocracy above him and the incurable...
Kissinger as Political Philosopher
Kissinger 1923–1968: The Idealist by Niall Ferguson. New York: Penguin Press, 2015. Hardcover, 986 pp., $39.95. Henry Kissinger has been called many things in his long, eventful public career, but “idealist” is not one of them. Until now. The first volume of the...
Schopenhauer and Postmodern Ethical Affectation
González reminds us of the uncomfortable lessons that the grouch of Danzig could teach our age.
The Meaning of Capitalism
TO THE POINT: FRIDAY, WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 1963Did you know that “capitalism” is a term coined by Karl Marx? Like most Marxist terms, it is loaded, and misleading to employ. So I never advocate or defend the abstraction called “capitalism”: rather, I favor a reasonably...
Our Wisest President
TO THE POINT: FRIDAY, JULY 31, 1964Tardily, historians and the intelligent public are coming to realize that the most intelligent, as well as most learned, man ever to inhabit the White House was sardonic old John Adams. Unlike the “advanced thinkers” of his time,...
Why Caesar Was Not Called King
An interview with Mary Beard on the history and enduring myths of ancient RomeAfter two thousand years ancient Rome still helps define and understand the way we live our lives today. To ignore the Roman past is not just to turn a blind eye to history, but also to...
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.
