The University Bookman

Reviewing Books that Build Culture

Watch James Panero of the New Criterion discuss “The Urbanity of Russell Kirk” at the 2025 Gerald Russello Memorial Lecture.

The Urbanity of Russell Kirk

“The urban fabric must also be mended and darned through continuous upkeep. The city is not yours to experiment. From Russell to Russello, our ancestral spirits cast their shadows whether or not we choose to observe the city of god in the cities of men.”

Marxism and the Rising Generation

“Gonzalez and Gorka have performed an important service in bringing together a wide range of fact and theory and in establishing a coherent line stretching directly from Marx through many important figures to the present day.”

Cracking the Code to Civilization

“In a world flooded with online influencers, ‘red pill’ rhetoric, and algorithmic posturing, Newell offers something older, wiser, and far superior: a code of manliness rooted in the Western tradition of virtue, character, and service. His message is that true manliness is not a pose or performance; it is the integration of moral and intellectual excellence, what he calls ‘the manly heart.’”

France and the Problem of Abstraction

“…French people’s love for ideas, indeed for ideology, often puts them at odds with the pragmatic requisites of a mature democracy and with reality itself. France is, as she very aptly puts it, ‘a country of dreamers who fall into melancholy when reality catches up with them.’ But far from being merely a psychological explanation for French unhappiness, this idealism is the key to a political understanding of our complicated relationship with the very principle of democracy.”

‘I Think I Have Made Poetry’

The Letters of Robert Frost, Volume I: 1886–1920 Edited by Donald Sheehy, Mark Richardson, and Robert Faggen. Harvard University Press, 2014. Hardcover, 811 pages, $45. In a conversation with the late literary scholar Peter J. Stanlis about ten years ago, Stanlis...

Turner’s Frontier Thesis, Continued

The Lost Region: Toward a Revival of Midwestern History by Jon K. Lauck. University of Iowa Press, 2013. Paperback, 166 pages, $35.Let me say at the outset that for me the only definitive “Trails Conference” is the one that occurs toward the end of Zane Grey’s The...

Bully in the Bully Pulpit

The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Simon & Schuster, 2013. Hardcover,928 pages, $40.Has this country had a providential history? Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin must be tempted to think...

Books in Little

A Second Look at First Things: A Case for Conservative Politics. Edited by Francis J. Beckwith, Robert P. George, and Susan McWilliams. St. Augustine’s Press, 2013. Paperback, 400 pages. Hadley P. Arkes must indeed feel vindicated by this work. An intelligent...

The Real Source of Modern Judicial Review

The Real Source of Modern Judicial Review

Dred Scott v. SandfordModern judicial review has a curious history. Its proponents seek to find its origins in the 1803 case of Marbury vs. Madison. The argument is that Chief Justice John Marshall “cleverly” created judicial review as an American institution. As the...

The Founders’ Founder

Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. A Critical Edition with Modern Spelling by Richard Hooker, edited by Arthur Stephen McGrade. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Three volumes. Hardcover, 1100 pages, $420. If asked “Which thinker exerted the greatest influence...

On Incomprehensibles

The literary form of Pascal’s Pensées is something of a puzzle. Is it a series of jottings, aphorisms, short essays, even conversational letters, or all of the above? Whatever it is, it is a remarkable work bordering on the inexhaustible. Not unlike Boswell’s Life of...

Religious Liberty and the Tragic Approach to Legal Theory

The Tragedy of Religious Freedom by Marc O. DeGirolami. Harvard University Press, 2013. Hardcover, 320 pages, $45. This is a brilliant and profoundly conservative book. Its argument, though not simple, is clearly stated for the attentive reader. One likely...

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.

Cracking the Code to Civilization
@CliffordBates12 on "The Code of Man: Love, Courage, Pride, Family, Country" (2nd Edition) by @waller_newell

Marxism and the Rising Generation
Jeffrey Folks on "NextGen Marxism: What It Is and How to Combat It" by @Gundisalvus and Katharine Cornell Gorka @EncounterBooks

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