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.”

Churchill After the War

The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Defender of the Realm, 1940–1965 by William Manchester and Paul Reid. Little Brown and Company, 2012. Hardcover, 1182 pages, $40. At the end of The Gathering Storm, the first volume of his history of the Second World War,...

Uncle Walt and the Lost Era of Network News

Cronkite by Douglas Brinkley. HarperCollins, 2012. Hardcover, 819 pages, $35.Somewhere near the far turn of this absurdly long and generally fawning biography of the “most trusted man in America,” it seems that something of real importance suddenly dawned on...

Conservative Mind at 60

This year marks the sixtieth anniversary of the publication of Russell Kirk's influential book, The Conservative Mind. Kirk Center Vice-Chairman Jeffrey O. Nelson has written an op-ed for the Detroit News to celebrate the occasion and offer an assessment of the...

Editor’s Introduction

The 2011 volume of Studies in Burke and His Time follows a four year gap in publication. This lapse reflects, in part, the economic conditions of our times, and the struggle to acquire the necessary funding to continue publication. Fortunately, through the support of...

The Perils of Neutrality

The Common Good of Constitutional Democracy: Essays in Political Philosophy and on Catholic Social Teaching by Martin Rhonheimer, edited by William F. Murphy, Jr. Catholic University of America Press, 2013. Paperback, 560 pages, $45. This collection of essays is...

Capitalism vs. the Free Market

The Morality of Capitalism: What Your Professors Won’t Tell You edited by Tom Palmer. Jameson Books, Inc., 2011. Paperback, 129 pp., $8.95. Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy by Robert Sirico. Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2012. Hardcover, 213...

Tolkien and the Great Tale

The Christian World of ‘The Hobbit’ by Devin Brown. Abingdon Press, 2012 193 pp., $14.99 paper.J. R. R. Tolkien’s fame as a founder of modern fantasy and as one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century is assured. But he is still often not recognized...

Farming, Community, and Culture

Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community, by Wendell Berry. Pantheon Books 1994, 208 pp., $20, cloth; $10 paper. To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely. —Edmund Burke Wendell Berry’s career has spanned more than thirty years and this newest collection...

Marital Distress and the 2012 T. S. Eliot Poetry Prize

Stag’s Leap: Poems, by Sharon Olds. Knopf, 2012. 112 pages, Hardcover, $27; Paperback, $17.On January 15, 2013, the Poetry Book Society in London announced that the winner of the annual T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry (awarded to the best new collection of poetry...

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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