The University Bookman

Reviewing Books that Build Culture

Join friends of the Bookman in New York City on December 8, 2025 for the Gerald Russello Memorial Lecture.

Defending the Christian Faith

“In 100 Tough Questions For Catholics: Common Obstacles To Faith Today… David G. Bonagura, Jr. gives bite-sized answers to dozens of big questions about the faith.”

How to Love What is Permanent

“Throughout the book, Gibbs pleads with his readers that we not only think of the soul in terms of salvation but also in terms of health. Good taste won’t save one’s soul. But it will nourish the soul and incline the soul towards virtue much more than the bad taste we will acquire from mediocre things.”

Personalism in the Age of AI

“Personalism is a philosophical movement that places the human person at the center of inquiry, affirming the inherent dignity, value, and uniqueness of each individual. While it spans both religious and secular traditions, its common thread is a commitment to defending the irreducible reality of the person in an age increasingly shaped by systems, technologies, and abstractions.”

Christopher Dawson and Pluralism

“In particular, I want to examine three aspects of Dawson’s thought: his conclusion that cultures, especially Western culture, historically have been pluralist; his contention that a pluralism of cultures preserves a sphere of freedom from dominant modern ideologies that would eliminate that freedom; and finally, Dawson’s conviction that a pluralist world represents a new opportunity for evangelization.”

Evangelical Culture, Then and Now

Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into the Evangelical Subculture in America, 25th Anniversary Edition by Randall Balmer. Oxford University Press, 2014. Paperback, 432 pages, $25.To read Randall Balmer’s Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory as an evangelical in 2015,...

Neuhaus Described, If Not Explained

Richard John Neuhaus: A Life in the Public Square by Randy Boyagoda. Image, 2015. Hardcover, 480 pages, $30.From the mid-1960s up until his death in 2009, Richard John Neuhaus was one of America’s leading clergymen and public intellectuals. In his new biography, Randy...

Mis-Judging Law, Meaning, and Justice

Judging Statutes by Robert A. Katzmann. Oxford University Press, 2014. Hardcover, 184 pages, $25.It is safe to say that, with some notable exceptions (for example, Chief Justice Roberts’s 2012 opinion saving Obamacare from itself by substituting the word “tax” for the...

Rehabilitating MacArthur

The Most Dangerous Man in America: The Making of Douglas MacArthur by Mark Perry. Basic Books, 2014. Hardcover, 380 pages, $30. Supreme Commander: MacArthur’s Triumph in Japan by Seymour Morris, Jr. Harper Collins, 2014. Hardcover, 363 pages, $27. The historical...

Birzer on Kirk

An interview with Brad Birzer, incumbent of the Russell Amos Kirk Chair in History at Hillsdale College, is the feature article in the most recent issue of Religion and Liberty from the Acton Institute. Birzer discusses his new biography, Russell Kirk: A Conservative...

Lubbers on the Liberal Arts

Listen or read here as Arend D. Lubbers, Grand Valley State University President Emeritus and longest serving college president in the country, speaks on the importance of a liberal arts education. President Lubbers has been a longtime friend of the Kirk family and...

Lubbers on the Liberal Arts

A video of a talk on the importance of a liberal arts education by Arend D. Lubbers, President Emeritus of Grand Valley State University.Listen as Arend D. Lubbers, Grand Valley State University President Emeritus and the longest-serving college president in the...

Citizens Without States?

Adapted from Cosmopolitanism in the Age of Globalization: Citizens without States. Lee Trepanier and Khalil Habib, ed. University of Kentucky Press, 2011. Paperback, 376 pages, $35. While our political and cultural elites debate about what to do with the millions of...

Is It Too Late for Democracy?

Nell’età della tarda democrazia. Scritti sullo Stato, le istituzioni e la politica (In the Age of Late-Democracy: Essays on State, Institutions and Politics), by Lorenzo Ornaghi. Vita e Pensiero, 2013. Paperback, 385 pages, €28. In a passage of his Politica methodice...

The Book Gallery

A collection of conversations with Bookman editor Luke C. Sheahan and writers and authors of imagination and erudition.

How to Love What is Permanent
Sarah Reardon on "Love What Lasts: How to Save Your Soul From Mediocrity" by Joshua Gibbs.
@CirceInstitute

Personalism in the Age of AI Grant R. Martsolf on "Personalism for the Twenty-First Century: Essays in Honor of David Walsh" Edited by Thomas W. Holman and Richard Avramenko.
@RLPublisher

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