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.

How Charlotte Brontë Became Charlotte Brontë

“Graham Watson’s biography of Charlotte is a judiciously researched and well-written overview of the final years of Charlotte’s life… readers will learn just how central Charlotte was to the literary establishment that both praised and scorned her.”

C.S. Lewis and Gender Ideology

“…[Herring] hopes that his exploration of Lewis’ work will inspire and equip Christian readers to understand and respond to our culture’s gender confusion.”

The Case for the Messiah

“…Catholic Answers apologist Jimmy Akin… explores the ancient Jewish idea of the Messiah, along with the historical evidence for Christ, arguing that Jesus is indeed the anointed one foretold in the Old Testament.”

Coke and the Western Legal Tradition

Common Law. El pensamiento político y jurídico de Sir Edward Coke (Common Law. The political and juridical thought of Sir Edward Coke) by Elio A. Gallego García. Madrid: Ediciones Encuentro, 2012. Paperback, 204 pages, $24.Has the past still something to tell us? Is...

Thinking Like Edmund Burke?

The Intellectual Life of Edmund Burke: From the Sublime and Beautiful to American Independence. By David Bromwich. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014. Hardcover, 512 pages, $40. This first installment of a two-volume intellectual biography of Burke is...

A Marvelous Tale

Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary by J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien. Houghton Mifflin, 2014. Hardcover, 448 pages, $28. J. R. R. Tolkien’s newly published translation of Beowulf will be of interest to two overlapping groups: on the one hand,...

Progressives and the Booboisie

The Revolt Against the Masses: How Liberalism Has Undermined the Middle Class by Fred Siegel. Encounter Books, 2014. Hardcover, 240 pages, $24.What do H. L. Mencken and Barack Obama have in common? Not much, it would seem. The sage of Baltimore was skeptical of all...

Books in Little

The Rule of Nobody: Saving America from Dead Laws and Broken Government by Philip K. Howard. W. W. Norton & Company, 2014. 257 pages, $24. It is obvious that the current system of government is failing—higher expenses, increased waste, and little (if any)...

American Religious Freedom: The Revised Story

The Rise and Decline of American Religious Freedom by Steven D. Smith. Harvard University Press, 2014. Hardcover, 240 pages, $40. In legal scholarship, as in any literature, style matters as much as content. The subjects authors explore, their manners and patterns of...

The Humanistic Tradition in Literature

Literary Criticism from Plato to Postmodernism: The Humanistic Alternative by James Seaton. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Hardcover, 225 pages, $90.Back when I was a pimple-faced graduate student in English and law, I ordered a book from Amazon titled...

How Progressive Is Berlin?

Isaiah Berlin and the Politics of Freedom edited by Bruce Baum and Robert Nichols. Routledge, 2013. Hardcover, 284 pages, $130. Among Anglophone political theorists who lived in the twentieth century, Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997) stood out for the breadth of his...

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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