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.”

Books in Little

Authority Not Majority: The Life and Times of Friedrich Julius Stahl by Ruben Alvarado (Wordbridge Publishing, 134 pp.) Principles of Law by Friedrich Julius Stahl, ed. and trans. Ruben Alvarado (Wordbridge Publishing, 140 pp.) Alvarado’s two volumes make available...

The High Achievement of Christopher Dawson

A Historian and His Word: a Life of Christopher Dawson, 1889–1970 by Christina Scott. The Dynamic Character of Christian Culture: Essays on Dawsonian Themes edited by Peter J. Cataldo.“Years ago when I was an undergraduate your Ballad of the White Horse first brought...

Safer in Minnesota

On Essays and LettersSomehow, on my shelves, I have an apparently unread book called Letters from the Country. This book, written by Carol Bly, was published by Penguin in 1981. Carol Bly, as I found out, died in 2007, a well-known figure in Minnesota literary...

Pianarchy

After the Golden Age: Romantic Pianism and Modern Performance by Kenneth Hamilton. Oxford University Press (New York) 304 pp, $29.95, 2008What if all classical recordings were destroyed tomorrow? Forget the obvious fact that such mass destruction could never be...

Dignity and the Law

In the Shadow of the Law by Kermit Roosevelt Straus & Giroux (New York) 384 pp, $24.00, 2005 Steadily emerging over the past two decades is an impressive collection of numerous books, essays, and academic writings making highly critical pronouncements of the...

The Right’s Exit

Conservatism in America: Making Sense of the American Right by Paul Gottfried. Palgrave Macmillan (New York) 189 pp, $48.00, 2007 The 2008 elections raised important questions about the prospects for conservatism in the United States. Many conservatives express...

The Story of Carlton Hayes

Carlton Hayes, synonymous with European history to generations of twentieth-century American undergraduates, has been largely neglected since his death in 1964. He was a trailblazer, choosing to study what was then the unfashionable field of European history, and...

Knowing It All

Journals: 1952–2000 by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., edited by Andrew Schlesinger and Stephen Schlesinger. The Penguin Press (New York) 894 pp., $40.00, 2007Historians of the American presidency are notorious for composing lists. The five greatest presidents … the five...

The End of America as We Know It?

Immigration and the American Future by Chilton Williamson, Jr. Chronicles Press 307 pp., 2007Chilton Williamson, Jr., former book review editor at National Review and the current senior editor for books at Chronicles, has compiled an invaluable set of essays in...

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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