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.

Poetry of Transcendence

“A related, and most welcome, theme in Killing Orpheus is memento mori, a reminder of the inevitability of death. Our lives have become so long, easy, and comfortable that death has become something of an inconvenient truth, which many prefer to ignore or forget. McClatchey is not one of them, thankfully: the collection abounds with reminders of our mortality.”

The Consensus Reality

“In his study of an underlying consensus regarding education, race, and gender, Jonathan Butcher has performed a valuable service for those who wish to understand the true nature of the so-called division within American society today.”

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.”

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...

Strange Inhabitants of the New World

An excerpt from 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, 284 pages, $32.Our friend and Front Porch Republic founder Jeremy Beer has just edited and...

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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