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.

William F. Buckley Jr.: Literary Figure 

“…the American public intellectual might best be appreciated as a literary figure. Producing about 350,000 words for publication yearly at the peak of his career, Buckley was never at a loss for what to say or how to say it.”

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.”

Natural Law and the Need for Moral Clarity

“Christians need clarity on the way their faith shapes their political activity. This ambiguous book fails to provide that clarity.”

Moral Realism Over and Against Contingent Pluralism 

“The challenge for… all natural law theorists is the proper ordering and integration of the contingencies of a given culture and the universality of the primary precepts of natural law.”

History on Improper Principles

“The condescending attitude—even animus—behind this book is, in fact, among the reasons Trump came to power in the first place. Voters, clearly sick of being sneered at by elites like Lichtman and his colleagues in the established commentariat, have turned to populism as an outlet for their frustrations.”

A Resurrection Apologetic

Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense by N. T. Wright. Harper Collins (San Francisco) 240 pp., $29.50, cloth, 2006. Tom Wright is the author of many scholarly and popular books, including a popular-level translation and commentary of the New Testament (the...

A Case for Insular History

The Discovery of Islands by J. G. A. Pocock. Cambridge University Press (Cambridge), 358 pp., $75.00, 2006. Each generation revises history to fit its own needs and preoccupations because,while the past itself remains constant, the prism through with it is seen...

Let Us Walk in the Light of the Lord

Peace in the Promised Land: A Realist Scenario edited by Srdja Trifkovic. Rockford Institute (Rockford, Illinois), 2005. 368 pp., $29.95 paper.Political science, properly understood, can be capable of seeking “the truth of existence,” of establishing order in society....

Red Mist

How Small Presses Rescue Classic Genre Writers from OblivionThe first two generations of the twentieth century were reading generations, devoting part of their hard earned leisure to the major writers of the day—Booth Tarkington, Sinclair Lewis, and F. Scott...

Tiber, Thames, Potomac

That the First Amendment establishes a “separation” between church and state throughout all levels of government has long been a stubborn myth of American life, shared by both nativists and, at least since the early part of the last century, most liberals. Philip...

C-SPAN Radio Broadcast

C-SPAN Radio’s American Political Archive program will be broadcasting for the first time ever a conversation between Russell Kirk and the late liberal social critic Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., recorded in the late 1970s. It will broadcast live on Saturday, March 31 at...

The Virgin and the Dynamo

The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness by Virginia Postrel. HarperCollins (New York), 237 pp. $24.95 cloth, 2003. The Future and Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict over Creativity, Enterprise, and...

Ernest van den Haag (1914–2002)

In Memoriam With the death of Ernest van den Haag on March 21, 2002, the conservative movement lost one of its most redoubtable intellectual warriors in the decades after World War II. And the University Bookman lost one of its longtime friends and supporters. Like so...

Decline and Fall

At the End of an Age by John Lukacs. Yale University Press (New Haven, Connecticut), 240pp., $22.95 cloth, 2002. In his new book, At the End of an Age, historian John Lukacs argues that the Modern Era, which began about five hundred years ago, is rapidly coming to its...

The Book Gallery

A collection of conversations with Bookman editor Luke C. Sheahan and writers and authors of imagination and erudition.

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