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.”

Russello in the WSJ

Gerald Russello reviews Michael Toth's book on founding father Oliver Ellsworth in the Wall Street Journal: “Uniting the Nation.”

Imaginative Conservative series and other items of note

A few items to call to your attention: • Our friends at The Imaginative Conservative are running a series of posts on "books that make us human" that's well worth a look. • They also ran an item recently on early work of Russell Kirk and his libertarian or merely...

Old Roads and Montesquieu’s Library

On Essays and LettersStudents of mine travel. Not a few of them manage to send me a note or a card, especially when they run across something they read in class or something they thought Schall would enjoy seeing. “I am currently in France,” a recently graduated...

A Child’s Imagination is a Terrible Thing to Waste

Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child by Anthony Esolen (ISI Books, November 2010), 320 pp., $26.95.“A good book is a dangerous thing. . . . It carries within it the possibility . . . of cracking open the shell of routine that prevents us from seeing the...

And the Tragedy Continues

Symposium: Conservatism and EmpireTen years on, September 11 is a tragedy that continues to break hearts. Family and friends continue to mourn loved ones whose lives were cut short. Many, many Americans mourn the loss of our long and closely held illusion that our...

How the GOP swallowed the Conservative Movement

Symposium: Conservatism and EmpireThe state of “American conservatism” can be fully appreciated by turning on FOX News and then listening to Karl Rove, Sean Hannity, or Bill Kristol present their customary civics lesson. One supposedly becomes a conservative by...

Empire and the Crisis of American Conservatism

Symposium: Conservatism and EmpireConservatism is the will to remain true to type, so American conservatism is a preference for America to remain American. In most ways that makes it a conservatism like any other. America is a particular society, and as such connects...

Metternich vs. McEmpire

Symposium: Conservatism and EmpireConservatism is poorly understood in the United States. It is not right-wing liberalism or nationalism; nor is it political Protestantism. It has nothing to do with a neurotic longing for an ideal past, and reactionaries who insist...

Love and Evil in Nazi Germany

In the Garden of Beasts by Eric Larsen (Crown, 2011). 464 pages, $26. In the Garden of Beasts features William E. Dodd, the American ambassador posted to Nazi Germany from 1933 through the end of 1937. Dodd, a 64-year-old University of Chicago history professor, was...

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.

"Delsol’s analysis stands out for the breadth of its perspective. Her essay covers topics as varied as corporatism, the French love for status and strikes, immigration, religion and secularism, populism and the role of intellectuals, Jacobinism, and the EU..."

Cracking the Code to Civilization
@CliffordBates12 on "The Code of Man: Love, Courage, Pride, Family, Country" (2nd Edition) by @waller_newell

Load More

Shop through Regnery
Support the Kirk Center
& University Bookman