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.

William F. Buckley Jr.: Literary Figure 

“…the American public intellectual might best be appreciated as a literary figure. Producing about 350,000 words for publication yearly at the peak of his career, Buckley was never at a loss for what to say or how to say it.”

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.”

Revisiting Walter Lippmann

“Lippmann sought to be—and was—what might be described today as an influencer. As such, he never sought to wield power, but he long desired to have the ears and eyes of the powerful. Arnold-Forster is certainly not unaware of that. But it is never his central message. If there is such a message in these pages, and there is, it is his effort to make the reader aware that Walter Lippmann, believer in and defender of the efficacy of progressive government, was also Walter Lippmann, believer in and defender of both the reality and importance of empire in general and of the American empire in particular.”

Family Homes and Drive-in Churches

“After the optimism of the suburban boom, it all went bust. Mass attendance fell by 70 percent. Women’s religious life died out. Parochial education was crippled… The green grass of suburbia was starved into a desiccated, brown waste.”

William F. Buckley Jr.: Literary Figure 

“…the American public intellectual might best be appreciated as a literary figure. Producing about 350,000 words for publication yearly at the peak of his career, Buckley was never at a loss for what to say or how to say it.”

The Real Great Depression?

The Forgotten Man, Graphic Edition: A New History of the Great Depression by Amity Shlaes. Harper Perennial, 2014. Paperback, 320 pages, $20.Amity Shlaes does not believe in playing it safe. In 2007 she issued the original edition of The Forgotten Man: A New History...

Teaching in an Age of Ideology

What does it mean to teach in an age of ideology? At first glance, especially for conservatives, the answer appears to be obvious: to advocate for conservative ideas and principles against the prevailing ideologies of relativism, feminism, multiculturalism, and other...

Alfred Thayer Mahan and the Coming of the First World War

The American diplomat and historian George F. Kennan called the First World War the “seminal catastrophe of [the twentieth] century.” Between 1914 and 1918, the major powers of Western civilization waged brutal and unrelenting war against each other, resulting in the...

Betrayal of the Arab Christians

Betrayal of the Arab Christians

The Last Communion: A Journey among the Abandoned Christians in the Arab World. By Klaus Wivel. Kristeligt Dagblads Forlag (Denmark), 2013. Paperback, 320 pages. In 2011 in the Danish weekly Weekendavisen, journalist Klaus Wivel published an open letter to the foreign...

The Philosophies of the Modern Era and the Catholic Church

The Church and the Culture of Modernity By R. J. Divozzo. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2011. Paperback, 404 pages, $15.25.Richard Divozzo’s The Church and the Culture of Modernity provides a insightful study of the root causes of the decline in public...

Multiculturalism or Clash of Civilizations

The Democratic Contradictions of Multiculturalism by Jens-Martin Eriksen and Frederick Stjernfelt. Telos Press, 2012. Paperback, 410 pages, $25. This is an important, even a courageous book, as it challenges the now-hallowed idea of multiculturalism. It examines the...

The Critic as Catalyst

The Long Voyage: Selected Letters of Malcolm Cowley, 1915–1987. Edited by Hans Bak. Harvard University Press, 2013. Hardcover, 848 pages, $40. Hans Bak rightly calls Malcolm Cowley (1898–1989) the “chronicler of the lost generation.” His pioneering literary history,...

What We’re Reading (Summer 2014)

From medieval sagas to anti-Communist Japanese surrealist novels, the Civil War campaigns to contemporary fiction, our contributors and friends again provide their summer reading lists. Every year this is one of our most popular features, as the suggestions from our...

The Book Gallery

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

@ubookman The mission of @ubookman is to identify and discuss those books that diagnose the modern age through the prism of the Permanent Things and so to support cultural renewal. Thanks for joining Bookman writers and readers to do our part to redeem the time. https://buff.ly/6uf2yRz

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