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.

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.”

How to Love What is Permanent

“Throughout the book, Gibbs pleads with his readers that we not only think of the soul in terms of salvation but also in terms of health. Good taste won’t save one’s soul. But it will nourish the soul and incline the soul towards virtue much more than the bad taste we will acquire from mediocre things.”

Personalism in the Age of AI

“Personalism is a philosophical movement that places the human person at the center of inquiry, affirming the inherent dignity, value, and uniqueness of each individual. While it spans both religious and secular traditions, its common thread is a commitment to defending the irreducible reality of the person in an age increasingly shaped by systems, technologies, and abstractions.”

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.”

The Awful Responsibility of Time

John Lukacs and the Problem of American History A Lukacs SymposiumSoon now we shall go out of the house and go into the convulsion of the world, out of history into history and the awful responsibility of Time. Robert Penn Warren, All the King’s Men (1946) Throughout...

John Lukacs as Teacher

A Lukacs Symposium John P. Rossi For years the Reader’s Digest had a feature entitled “The Most Unforgettable Character I Ever Met.” For me that was John Lukacs and the meeting took place in 1955 during my sophomore year at La Salle College. As a freshman I had heard...

John Lukacs: Biblical Historical Thinking

A Lukacs SymposiumLike Pontius Pilate, “whom,” John Lukacs says, “I could never contemplate without a modicum of sympathy,”[1] this Hungarian historian is curious to know the character of truth, its personality. He regards it as a “misconception” that historians can...

A Lukacs Symposium

We are pleased to present over the course of this week a series of essays focusing on the life and achievement of historian John Lukacs. Lukacs is an historian of wide-ranging penetration and power, with works ranging from European history—including the Hungary that...

What ‘Moonlighting’ Reveals

Certain Problems of American College TeachersEver since the introduction into American factories of the forty-hour week, the actual working-hours of American industrial workmen have been increasing; until in our day this practice attains extraordinary proportions. The...

Buckley and Individualist Conservatism

Buckley: William F. Buckley, Jr. and the Rise of American Conservatism by Carl T. Bogus. Bloomsbury Press, 2011. 405 pp. $30.00. William F. Buckley, Jr. continues to stand as the representative conservative of the postwar era. Bon vivant, former CIA operative, heir to...

On Instruction in Cheerful Forms

On Essays and LettersIn the Spring of 1618, John Donne, of “no man is an island” fame, preached a sermon at Lincoln’s Inn, the seat of the legal profession in London. Some years earlier he had matriculated there and now was returning as a chaplain. His earlier life,...

Passages: Meijer

We are deeply sorry to learn of the death of Fred Meijer. Meijer was a philanthropist par excellence and beloved by all in Michigan who knew him. Readers interested in his life and legacy may be interested to see Jim Person’s review of his biography published in the...

The Book Gallery

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

How to Love What is Permanent
Sarah Reardon on "Love What Lasts: How to Save Your Soul From Mediocrity" by Joshua Gibbs.
@CirceInstitute

Personalism in the Age of AI Grant R. Martsolf on "Personalism for the Twenty-First Century: Essays in Honor of David Walsh" Edited by Thomas W. Holman and Richard Avramenko.
@RLPublisher

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