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.”

The Anatomy of the Good

Putting on Virtue: The Legacy of the Splendid Vices by Jennifer A. Herdt. University of Chicago Press, [2008] 2012. Paper, 467 pages, $35.“’Tis hard to believe,” wrote Michel de Montaigne in his essay “On Virtue,” “that these so elevated qualities in a man can so...

Natural Law or Nihilism?

Natural Law or Nihilism?

The Wise Men Know What Wicked Things Are Written on the Sky by Russell Kirk. Regnery Gateway (1987), 132 pp. Although Dr. Kirk knows how hard the tempest of our time really rages, he has not fled or been driven to the heath like Lear or Lear’s fool. His insight is...

Endless Game of Thrones

A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin (5 of 7 planned volumes). Bantam, 1996–2012. Paper, 5232 pages, $75.   The embarrassment of narrative in a radically skeptical postmodern world is that it implies meaning. Simply constructing a story with beginning,...

Dos Passos: A Reassessment

Dos Passos: A Reassessment

Jean-Paul Sartre once called John Dos Passos [1896–1970] “the greatest novelist of the century,” a judgment which he did not hold alone.[1] Yet now, though Dos Passos has continued to write, few seem willing to rate him so highly. His biographer, John Wrenn, states...

Books in Little

Beyond Distributism by Thomas E. Woods Acton Institute, 2012, 79 pages, $3. The Bookman has long been an admirer of what has been called distributism, a social/economic theory that combines a preference for localism in politics and business, a strong agrarian focus,...

Cliché on a Hill

A conversation with Richard M. Gamble.Professor Richard Gamble, a Bookman contributor, holds the Anna Margaret Ross Alexander chair in history and political science at Hillsdale College. He has recently published In Search of the City on a Hill: The Making and...

Our Rascally World

On Essays and LettersIn a letter of Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) addressed to the poet Alexander Pope (1688–1744), dated September 29, 1725, Swift spoke of returning to the grand monde of Dublin, to deal with various curates and vicars, and to “correct allcorruptions...

Kirk’s most popular book

What was Russell Kirk’s most popular book during his lifetime? Perhaps surprisingly, it is the novel, Old House of Fear, which the New York Times called “a grandly satisfactory tale of vivid adventure.” Eerdmans released a new edition in 2007, and this morally weighty...

To College Students Considering a Course in American Poetry

I dwell in Possibility — Emily Dickinson Those who attend or are about to attend college may be surprised todiscover the confluence and influence of great poetry written in English at the beginning of the last century. Whether you agree or disagree with the often dark...

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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