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.”

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.”

Reality Check for Politics

“…Lawrence Mead throws tact out the window and, instead, lays bare our collective failure to properly and honestly address myriad social changes that have occurred since the 1960s—namely, widening cultural difference and group balkanization; unprecedented levels of immigration from the non-West; and the rise of identitarianism, especially from the social justice-Left.”

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.”

On Russian Conservatism

Russian Conservatism and Its Critics: A Study in Political Culture by Richard Pipes. Yale University Press (New Haven, Connecticut), 216 pp., $30.00 cloth, 2006. Constructing a sustainable political order has been the fundamental challenge for Russia since the Soviet...

American Conservative

Political Philosophy and Cultural Renewal: Collected Essays by Francis Graham Wilson, edited by H. Lee Cheek, Jr., M. Susan Power, and Kathy B. Cheek. Transaction Publishers (New Brunswick, New Jersey) 263 pp., $49.95 cloth, 2001. It has been argued, perhaps most...

Looking Behind the Mask

Masquerade by Joseph S. Salemi. Pivot Press (Expansive Poetry Online Bookstore), 84 pp., $12.00 paper, 2005. It is an act of courage to publish such a collection as Masquerade in the face of today’s feckless critics and the mindless gruel that most call poetry....

Toward a New Kind of History

Remembered Past: John Lukacs on History, Historians, and Historical Knowledge A Reader by John Lukacs (edited by Mark G. Malvasi and Jeffrey O. Nelson). ISI Books (Wilmington, Delaware), 922 pp., $30.00 cloth, 2005. “By the end of the second decade of my...

A Placid Portrait of the Enlightenment

The Enlightenment & the Intellectual Foundations of Modern Culture by Louis Dupré. Yale University Press (New Haven, Connecticut), 397 pp., $25.00 paper, 2004. One of the more promising cultural developments in these waning days of the West is the growing...

Garet Garrett: Intellectual Ancestor to Postwar Conservatives

Salvos Against the New Deal: Selections from the Saturday Evening Post 1933–1940 by Garet Garrett. Edited by Bruce Ramsey. Caxton Press (Caldwell, Idaho), 282 pp., $12.95 paper, 2002. Defend America First: The Antiwar Editorials of the Saturday Evening Post,...

Literature As Moral Meditation

Joseph Conrad: His Moral Vision by George A. Panichas. Mercer University Press, (Macon, Georgia) 165 pp., $35.00 cloth, 2005. Once again in this new volume, Joseph Conrad: His Moral Vision, George A. Panichas has demonstrated what he means when calling literary...

A Prudent Approach To Social Security’s Future

Social Security: False Consciousness and Crisisby John Attarian. Transaction Books (New Brunswick, NJ), xvii + 393 pp., $44.95 cloth, 2002. During Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign, the Republican Party ran a striking advertisement on television,...

Up From Scientism

Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing edited by William A. Dembski. ISI Books (Wilmington, Delaware) 366 pp., $28.00 cloth, 2004. This book contains a provocative collection of essays in which the educational and cultural authorities of...

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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