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.”

In Praise of Latin

We never forget our Latin teacher, it has often been said. How true it is for others of my generation, I cannot say, but I most assuredly remember mine. In our small high school, situated in the remote Adirondack mountain fastness of northern New York, we had an...

Forgotten Name, Enduring Legacy

Founding Federalist: The Life of Oliver Ellsworth by Michael C. Toth (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2011). 240 pages, $25. When American schoolchildren study the Constitutional Convention, they typically learn a few names—Madison, Randolph, Patterson, Washington—and few...

Universities: American, European, Third World

The literature and documentation of our educational decline have grown enormously in the last quarter-century, but we have now reached the moment when we may see education in perspective. Perspective in this case means the retrospective and prospective glance—but also...

Peter J. Stanlis (1920–2011)

Peter Stanlis, who died on July 18, aged 91, was Distinguished Professor of Humanities, Emeritus, at Rockford College and a world authority on Edmund Burke and Robert Frost. His scholarship and sheer intellectual courage reconfigured Burke studies by expounding the...

Robert Nisbet and the Idea of Community

A “Best of the Bookman” essay from 1978 discusses Robert Nisbet’s understanding of community and in particular his reading of the great sociologists on the subject of the severe and even pathological isolation of the individual in modern society.

Peter Stanlis, RIP

Dr. Peter J. Stanlis has died. He was a great friend of Russell Kirk and the Kirk Center and a great scholar. We have posted a remembrance of him by Senior Fellow Ian Crowe in the University Bookman. In addition, we would like to call our readers’ attention to two...

Karl von Habsburg on Russell Kirk

Von Habsburg speaks on the influence of Russell Kirk in Europe. This video is from a 2000 celebration in Prague for the publication of The Conservative Mind in Czech.You can watch it on Vimeo. Running time: 08:10. Karl von Habsburg is the son of Otto von Habsburg....

Video on the Influence of Russell Kirk in Europe

Karl von Habsburg spoke at the announcement in Prague in 2000 of the Czech translation of Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind. The video of his remarks is available here. Karl is the son of Otto von Habsburg, who died in July (we posted a memorial article by Denis...

What was the Enlightenment?

A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy by Jonathan Israel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010). Pages xiv, 276. “For what do we live,” Mr. Bennet asked his second daughter, having just read to her...

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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