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 Glimpse of Something Lost

America Moved: Booth Tarkington’s Memoirs of Time and Place, 1869–1928 by Booth Tarkington, edited by Jeremy Beer. Front Porch Republic Books, 2015. Paperback, 270 pages, $32. Just prior to this book’s arrival, I had acceded to a friend’s impassioned, insistent...

A Certain Cold Grandeur

On His Own Terms: A Life of Nelson Rockefeller by Richard Norton Smith. Random House, 2014. Hardcover, 842 pages, $38.Looking back during his final years, Nelson Rockefeller declared his life a failure in that he had not become president of the United States. He had...

Russell Kirk as a Midwestern Writer

Video of a seminar on "Russell Kirk as a Midwestern Writer" at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature at Michigan State University, June 2, 2015.A panel on "Russell Kirk as a Midwestern Writer" took place at the annual meeting of the...

Russell Kirk as a Midwestern Writer

A panel on "Russell Kirk as a Midwestern Writer" took place at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature on June 2, 2015 at Michigan State University. Jon Lauck was the moderator and presentations were made by Gleaves Whitney, James...

The Puritan Society: Toward Pluralism

The Last American Puritan: The Life of Increase Mather by Michael G. Hall. Wesleyan University Press, 1988. xv + 438 pp. $35.Michael G. Hall’s biography of Increase Mather goes far toward rehabilitating the Mather family of colonial Massachusetts. The Mathers have...

The Geneaology of Decadence?

Soumission by Michel Houellebecq. Paris: Flammarion, 2015. Hardcover, 300 pages, $50.When Joris-Karl Huysmans published À rebours in 1884, a novel that would come to be known as “la bible de la décadence,” the writer and literary critic Barbey d’Aurevilly weighed in...

A Tale of Contagious Enthusiasm

How Dante Can Save Your Life: The Life-Changing Wisdom of History’s Greatest Poem. by Rod Dreher. Regan Arts, 2015. Hardcover, 300 pages. $30.This is a book written in a surge of enthusiasm—in both the original and the modern sense of the word—and it has the virtues...

Dangers to the Soul

Dangers to the Soul

A conversation with Piers Paul ReadPiers Paul Read is an award-winning English author who has produced an array of novels and nonfiction works, including histories and biographies. This interview with Mr. Read was conducted by Karl Schmude, an Australian university...

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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