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.”

The First Thing We Do . . .

Unrestrained: Judicial Excess and the Mind of the American Lawyer by Robert F. Nagel. Transaction Publishers (New Brunswick, N.J.) 148 pp., $39.95 cloth, 2008   Robert F. Nagel, the Ira C. Rothgerber, Jr. Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of...

A Study of Two Masters of English Prose

The Same Man: George Orwell & Evelyn Waugh in Love and War by David Lebedoff. Random House (New York) 264 pp., 2008 Reviewed by John P. Rossi Evelyn Waugh and George Orwell were two of the twentieth century’s greatest masters of English prose: Waugh in his comic...

The Lesser of Evils: Democratic Capitalism Reconsidered

Democratic Capitalism and Its Discontents by Brian C. Anderson. ISI Books (Wilmington, Del.) 225 pp., $25.00 paper, 2007Few things are more irritating, wrote Lord Acton, than those which expose the pedigree of ideas. Brian Anderson’s Democratic Capitalism and Its...

A New Era for the Bookman

We apologize for the lack of the Bookman these past months, and we deeply regret any inconvenience our absence has caused. Fundraising and operational difficulties have prevented us from maintaining our usual production schedule, which the financial crisis only...

First Principles of Leadership Lecture

Annette Kirk spoke on March 3 on "First Principles of Leadership" for the Leadership Academy of the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids. You can see photos and view the lecture here on their site. The assigned...

Kirk Center in Italy

Senior Fellow Marco Respinti announces progress on the web site for the Centro Studi Russell Kirk based in Milan, Italy. It is still under development, but you can visit at www.russellkirk.eu. We have also recently posted an updated bio for Marco.

Permanent Things Newsletter

We are pleased to announce a new number of Permanent Things, the newsletter of the Russell Kirk Center, edited by Ben Lockerd. The Fall 2009 edition features a report on 2009 activities at the Center. You may download it at this link (PDF, 2.6MB).

Online Support Opportunity

The Kirk Center now has a PayPal account which enables secure donations via credit or debit card. We appreciate any contribution you can make toward our publications and seminars to further the Permanent Things. You can make a gift from this page. Thank you!

The Living Edmund Burke

Getting up in recent months an anthology of conservative writing, The Portable Conservative Reader, I had reason to re-read much of Burke. More than ever before, I was impressed with how relevant Burke’s thoughts—and, indeed, Burke’s actions—remain to our present...

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

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