The University Bookman

Reviewing Books that Build Culture

Join friends of the Bookman in New York City on December 8 for the Gerald 2025 Russello Memorial Lecture.

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.”

Christopher Dawson and Pluralism

“In particular, I want to examine three aspects of Dawson’s thought: his conclusion that cultures, especially Western culture, historically have been pluralist; his contention that a pluralism of cultures preserves a sphere of freedom from dominant modern ideologies that would eliminate that freedom; and finally, Dawson’s conviction that a pluralist world represents a new opportunity for evangelization.”

Trust and Hope as the Final Words

“Each poem is biblically rooted, but Kohler draws on extra-biblical sources and her own creative imagination to ponder what her characters may have been thinking during the pivotal moments of their mostly undocumented lives. The result is a beautiful exploration into the hearts and minds of the women of the Bible—both named and unnamed—that leaves readers feeling as though the women are imminently present, sharing their innermost thoughts and the overlooked aspects of their experiences.”

The Other Greek Woman

“Felson’s Penelope, who seems, in all probability, very close to Homer’s Penelope, is the faithful wife of Odysseus, but she is also the independent and flirtatious matriarch who rules over her household and teases the suitors, whom she views as her ‘geese.’”

The Deeper Roots of Social Order

Symposium: The Conservative Mind at 60Sixty years after its publication, The Conservative Mind could easily be dismissed as an irrelevant artifact of a failed political movement. The “conservative movement” has utterly failed to stop or even slow the leftward tilt of...

A Problem of Definition

Symposium: The Conservative Mind at 60Russell Kirk’s careful delineations in the earliest pages of The Conservative Mind make clear his awareness of a fundamental problem when we consider conservatism. It is a slippery phenomenon. Edmund Burke was a conservative, but...

The Use and Abuse of Samuel Johnson

The Interpretation of Samuel Johnson. Jonathan Clark & Howard Erskine-Hill, editors. Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Hardcover, 264 pages, $85. The Politics of Samuel Johnson. Jonathan Clark & Howard Erskine-Hill, editors. Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Hardcover, 256...

From Practice to Theory

It Didn’t Have to Be This Way: Why Boom and Bust Is Unnecessary—and How the Austrian School of Economics Breaks the Cycle by Harry C. Veryser. ISI Books, 2013. Hardcover, 318 pages, $29. It is rare for an American manufacturing executive operating in the domestic...

Still Left in the Dark

Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark by Brian Kellow. Viking Adult, 2011. Hardcover, 417 pages, $28.After Richard Nixon was re-elected President in 1972, Newsweek magazine quoted acclaimed film critic Pauline Kael as saying: “I live in a rather special world. I only know...

What We’re Reading (Summer 2013)

Last year’s summer reading list was justifiably popular, so the Bookman pleased to return with another round of contributions from our reviewers, who have culled through the massive numbers of books published to focus on those worth reading, discussing, and digesting....

Pragmatists versus Agrarians?

Superfluous Southerners: Cultural Conservatism and the South, 1920–1990 by John J. Langdale. University of Missouri Press, 2012. Cloth, 192 pages, $50. (Kindle ed.) John J. Langdale’s Superfluous Southerners paints a magnificent portrait of Southern conservatism and...

Burke, Party, and the Human Person

JP O’Malley interviews Jesse Norman, political thinker and MP, and author of the new book, Edmund Burke: The First Conservative, on Burke as a postmodern thinker, proponent of political parties, agent of change, and other themes.

The Critics of Burke

The Critics of Burke

Edmund Burke: Appraisals and Applications, edited by Daniel E. Ritchie. Transaction Publishers, 1990, xxvi + 291 pp., $29.95. Daniel Ritchie has given the scholarly world a comprehensive and useful anthology of criticism of Edmund Burke’s writings. I do disagree most...

The Book Gallery

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

There's still time to sign up to join the @KirkCenter for the McLellan Prizes Gala in DC on November 19 https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/2025-mclellan-prizes

In honor of longtime @ubookman editor Gerald J. Russello, enjoy this Russello Classic, "Christopher Dawson and Pluralism."

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