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.”

A Halloween Story

To help you celebrate Halloween, we are posting Russell Kirk's most famous—and award-winning—ghost story, "A Long Long Trail A Winding." Written and read by Kirk, the story made famous a real hobo who lived with the Kirksfor six years. The story begins with a...

New Solzhenitsyn Edition

The Kirk Center knows of few better friends or champions of the moral imagination in humane letters than Edward E. Ericson Jr., Emeritus Professor of English at Calvin College. A distinguished authority on the life and works of the Russian man of letters Aleksandr...

Review of the new edition of Kirk on Eliot

James Matthew Wilson reviews the new edition of Eliot and His Age by Russell Kirk for First Principles, the ISI web journal. Kirk considered this among his best books, and we are grateful for so sympathetic a review.

The Predicament of the Individual

An interview with James Poulos, editor of the Postmodern Conservative blog.The University Bookman is pleased to present this exclusive interview with James Poulos, doctoral candidate in political theory at Georgetown University and founding editor of the blog...

The Freedom to Use Common Sense

An interview with Philip K. Howard, author of Life without LawyersThe University Bookman is pleased to present this interview with Philip K. Howard, Vice-Chairman of the law firm of Covington & Burling LLP and Founder and Chair of Common Good, a non-profit...

Kirk in Time and Newsweek

Russell Kirk has been invoked recently in both Time and Newsweek—briefly in Joe Scarboroough's article on strategies for the Republican Party in Time,and more extensively in Jon Meacham's article, “A Modest Case for a Burkean Boomlet” in Newsweek.

Forgotten Founders

University Bookman editor Gerald J. Russello reviews biographies of Gouverneur Morris and Luther Martin, from the new ISI series on “forgotten founders” of the United States in an online exclusive.

Forgotten Constitutional Founders

An Incautious Man: The Life of Gouverneur Morris by Melanie Miller (ISI Books 2008, $25.00). Forgotten Founder, Drunken Prophet: The Life of Luther Martin by Bill Kauffman (ISI Books 2008, $25.00). Even after more than two centuries, the story of the Constitution...

Marshall McLuhan: Postmodern Grammarian

The Classical Trivium: The Place of Thomas Nashe in the Learning of His Time by Marshall McLuhan Edited by W. Terrence Gordon Gingko Press (Corte Madera, Calif.) 356 pp., $39.96 Cloth, 2005. The Medium and the Light: Reflections on Religion by Marshall McLuhan. Edited...

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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