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.”

History on Improper Principles

History on Improper Principles

“The condescending attitude—even animus—behind this book is, in fact, among the reasons Trump came to power in the first place. Voters, clearly sick of being sneered at by elites like Lichtman and his colleagues in the established commentariat, have turned to populism as an outlet for their frustrations.”

Man’s Exposed Condition in a World of Severe Conflict

Man’s Exposed Condition in a World of Severe Conflict

“When Czeslaw Milosz was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1980, he was introduced as a writer ‘who with uncompromising clearsightedness voices man’s exposed condition in a world of severe conflicts.’ As it is, he’s a poet of history whose warnings about despots carry a terrible weight… Here is a man who, from his exile, remembers his European homeland, his Poland, as a place of Gothic cathedrals, of Baroque churches and, yes, ‘synagogues filled with the wailing of a wronged people.’”

Revisiting Walter Lippmann

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

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 

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.”

Reality Check for Politics

Reality Check for Politics

“…Lawrence Mead throws tact out the window and, instead, lays bare our collective failure to properly and honestly address myriad social changes that have occurred since the 1960s—namely, widening cultural difference and group balkanization; unprecedented levels of immigration from the non-West; and the rise of identitarianism, especially from the social justice-Left.”

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.

Me happily @LawLiberty. Why Robert Nisbet matters as much now as he ever did.

@IVMiles @TheRightsWriter @DanJTPitt @ToryAnarchist @DanHugger @lsheahan @KirkCenter @ubookman @heymiller @Hillsdale @ScotBertram

Hace unos meses tuve el placer de reseñar la nueva edición de "The Social Philosophers" de Robert Nisbet. Lo mejor: se publica en un espacio de referencia para mi @ubookman
Ojalá pronto veamos más obras de este gran sociólogo traducidas en España https://goo.su/5eNFJ

Load More

Shop through Regnery
Support the Kirk Center
& University Bookman