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.”

Bradbury the Realist

Ray Bradbury by David Seed. Illinois University Press (Modern Masters of Science Fiction), 2015. Paperback, 207 pages, $24.Anything Martian is currently newsworthy—made so by NASA’s announcement that liquid water exists on the surface of the Red Planet, by various...

Are We a Nation of Heretics?

Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics by Ross Douthat. The Free Press, 2012 (2013). Paperback, 352 pages, $17. A few years ago, Ross Douthat, who has assumed the mantle of the conservative columnist at The New York Times, published Bad Religion: How We...

Permanence, Tradition, and Memory

Essays on Modernity: And the Permanent Things from Tradition by James A. Patrick, Introduced by Thomas Howard, Edited by B. R. Mullikin. Fort Worth: Tower Press Books, 2015. Hardcover, paperback, Kindle, 190 pages. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of attending one of...

Writings after Empire

JP O’Malley interviews translator Michael Hofmann about the émigré novelist Joseph Roth and Roth’s thoughts on conservatism, place, and life after the end of empire.

The Flowering of Legal Cynicism

More than one commentator has noted that the majority decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, requiring states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, actually was decades in the making. No-fault divorce and our culture of sexual promiscuity, separating sex and even...

Et in Academia, Ego

Bradstreet Gate: A Novel by Robin Kirman. Crown, 2015. Hardcover, 320 pages, $26.Death and defeat haunt the college novel. College novels—whether they focus on students or professors—typically tell a story in which the shining promises of academia prove not only false...

Chaos and Choices

An interview with C. A. HigginsThe Bookman recently spoke with C. A. Higgins, author of the science fiction novel Lightless, which is being released by Del Rey at the end of September 2015. Ms. Higgins holds an undergraduate degree in physics from Cornell and now...

On Not Being Boring

Acedia and its Discontents: Metaphysical Boredom in an Empire of Desire by R. J. Snell. Angelico Press, 2015. Paperback, 144 pages, $15.R. J. Snell has written a substantial and illuminating book, using the ancient concept of the vice of acedia (spiritual or...

Re-introducing Japan’s Conservatives

Japan’s Love-Hate Relationship with the West by Hirakawa Sukehiro. Global Oriental (Kent, UK), 2005. Hardcover, 400 pages, $90. Conservatives are often portrayed as an insular lot. Blinded by tradition and preternaturally bigoted in constitution, so goes the standard...

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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