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.”

After Ideology but Before the Revolution: The Liberal Soul

“Walsh could give voice to a devastating criticism of the critics of liberal democracy because they forgot the most important aspect of what they chopped to pieces: there can be no analysis of liberal democracy outside the convictions that underpin it, namely mutual respect for the dignity and rights of others. There is no higher purpose possible than the affirmation of the infinite worth of each human being, of each ‘person,’ and the political consequences of that affirmation: to build that insight into the regimes of self-government.”

Liberalism’s Death Has Been Greatly Exaggerated

“In this profound work, Walsh engages the friends and foes of liberalism alike to reveal its enduring appeal and resilience. Throughout he urges us to consider liberalism not so much as a stale academic doctrine, but as a lived experience rooted in the core belief of the inviolable dignity of each person as a free and rational being.”

The Paradox of Liberal Resilience

“The defense of inner liberty seems always to come as the long-awaited response and corrective to the modern state’s interventions…”

Order and the Market

The Commercial Society: Foundations and Challenges in a Global Age by Samuel Gregg. Lexington Books (Lanham, Maryland), 190 pp. cloth, $75.00; paper, $18.00, 2007. Traditional conservatives have not always been friendly to the market economy. Some, like John Ruskin,...

The Traditionalist Moment

Crunchy Cons: How Birkenstocked Burkeans, Gun-Loving Organic Gardeners, Evangelical Free-Range Farmers, Hip Homeschooling Mamas, Right-Wing Nature Lovers, and Their Diverse Tribe of Countercultural Conservatives Plan to Save America (Or At Least the Republican Party)...

Bookman in Colombia

On December 15, El Heraldo, one of Colombia's largest newspapers, published a Spanish version of Michael J. Ard's review, "Latin America's Five Deadly Sins," which appeared in our Spring 2007 issue. Here is the link.

Bookman Web Exclusives

We are pleased to announce web-only reviews as a new feature of the University Bookman. This new content will enable us to reach our readers more regularly with reviews of notable books, interviews, and other features. Our first online feature—ironically—is a review...

About our Web Exclusives

We are pleased to announce web-only reviews as a new feature of the Bookman. This new content will enable us to reach our readers more regularly with reviews of notable books, interviews, and other features. Check back often for new exclusive content!

Man and His Eschatological Destiny

Andy Catlett: Early Travels by Wendell Berry. Shoemaker and Hoard (Emeryville, California), 160 pp., $23.00 cloth, 2006.Wendell Berry is a writer/philosopher who has taken up his pen to examine the question, what is the purpose of human existence? He succeeds at his...

Reassessing Homo Economicus

It has been some years since the University Bookman has tackled issues relating to the economy. In the interim, new scholarship has continued to demolish the god-term “economic man,” that modernist construct of utilitarian calculation and rational self-interest. Such...

New Bookman and Barzun

The new issue of the University Bookman is on its way. Featuring a special section on the humane economy, the issue includes reviews of books on agrarianism, Wendell Berry, Tocqueville, the commercial society, and other subjects. As a preview, here is Tracy Lee...

Books in Little

A Loeb Classical Library Reader (Harvard University Press, 234 pp.) The Loeb series of Latin and Greek texts, bound in their distinctive red and green, respectively, has been a standby for readers of the classics for generations. While other series are more focused on...

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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