The University Bookman

Reviewing Books that Build Culture

What the American Revolution Secured: Order, Justice, and Freedom

Throughout the semiquincentennial year celebrating America’s independence, The University Bookman will invite a range of writers and speakers to contribute to a series drawing upon Russell Kirk’s work on the American Revolution and the constitutional order it secured.

A Heroic Little Sparrow Shines Brightly in the Dark World of Children’s Literature

“The story is as delightful and charming as it sounds, recounting the odyssey of a virtuous sparrow named Passer who must move his family to a new home after ‘big yellow machines’ appear at his home.”

Ulyssean Interrogations at Dusk, or Slowing Down at 65

“Odysseus himself was offered immortality by the nymph Calypso—and refused it. He chose instead to return to his wife Penelope, a mortal woman who would age. He chose to return to a finite life marked by loss, memory, and longing; and in that choice, I have always thought, lies his greatest courage—and his deepest wisdom… I hope and I believe that I would have made the same Ulyssean decision.”

From the Man Who Loved America

“Angelo Codevilla advanced and argued for an anti-Wilsonian approach to both American foreign and American domestic policy.”

Albert Camus

It is not surprising that liberals and humanists, even the vaguely socialistic, have tried to appropriate Albert Camus. He can no longer protest, although in the posthumously published Carnets (dealing with the years from 1942 to 1951) he did make the contemptuous...

continuity change

Any healthy society requires an enduring contest between its permanence and its progression. We cannot live without continuity, and we cannot live without prudent change.

Welcome to the New Bookman

Welcome to the new University Bookman! After some significant behind the scenes reworking, the country’s oldest conservative book review is back with a new online presence, continuing our decades-long discussion of the important books and ideas of our age. The new...

Welcome to the new Bookman

We are delighted to announce and welcome you to the new online University Bookman. We will be updating weekly and hope you will follow us by e-mail, RSS, or Twitter. Please {encode=webmaster@kirkcenter.org title="let us know"} if any links are broken or pages display...

The Tolstoy Locomotive on the Berlin Track

Twenty-seven years ago, in 1953, at the height of the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union, a short essay by an Oxford don produced a swiftly swelling wave of praise among public thinkers and intellectuals, elevating its writer to a situation of...

Five Faces of Death

Love Is Stronger than Death by Peter Kreeft (Ignatius Press, 1992; originally published in 1979), 121 pages. It might well be expected that a book on death and how we view it would be gloomy and depressing. But Peter Kreeft’s Love Is Stronger than Death, recommended...

About the Bookman

“Reviewing Books that Build Culture.” For over five decades, the University Bookman, founded by Russell Kirk, has sought to redeem the time by identifying and discussing those books that diagnose the modern age and support the renewal of culture and the common good....

unbought

A poor man, if he has dignity, honesty, the respect of his neighbors, a realization of his duties, a love of the wisdom of his ancestors, and possibly some taste for knowledge or beauty, is rich in the unbought grace of life.

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.

Smithian Wisdom on Demand
@mungowitz on "Just Sentiments: 22 More Smithian Essays" Edited by Daniel B. Klein and @erikwmatson
CL Press/Fraser Institute

From the Man Who Loved America
Chuck Chalberg on "Fighting Enemies Foreign and Domestic: The Legacy of Angelo M. Codevilla," Edited by @RpwWilliams @EncounterBooks

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