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.”

Moral Visions of the Free Market

Wealth, Poverty & Human Destiny edited by Doug Bandow and David Schindler. ISI Books (Wilmington, Delware), 350 pp., $29.95 cloth, 2003. For religious believers, the complicated issue of reconciling the free market with traditional morality is one of increasing...

Scalia the Originalist

Scalia Dissents: Writings of the Supreme Court’s Wittiest, Most Outspoken Justice edited and with commentary by Kevin A. Ring. Regnery Publishing (Washington, D.C.), 338 pp., $27.95 cloth, 2004. The Opinions of Justice Antonin Scalia: The Caustic Conservative...

Many a Touching Story

On Essays and Letters A young friend sent me a rather ancient looking book entitled, Tales of Old New England. The book was actually published by Castle in Secaucus, New Jersey, of all places, in 1986. It was, however, a compilation of essays directly taken from the...

Letter from Italy

Debate on Relativism Many consider ethical relativism a pathology of the modern world, from which especially Europe and the West seriously suffer. Others see in relativism the very physiology of the West, and define it as a particular epistemological outlook which...

Marx of the Master Class

Calhoun and Popular Rule: The Political Theory of the Disquisition and Discourse by H. Lee Cheek (University of Missouri Press, 2001), 202 pages H. Lee Cheek’s study of John C. Calhoun (1782–1850) achieves exactly what it sets out to do. It offers a close...

No Samson?

Thinking about the Presidency: Documents and Essays from the Founding to the Present, edited by Gary L. Gregg (Rowman & Littlefield 2005) Thinking about the Presidency fulfills a critical need for professors and students of the presidency. By blending the...

The Autumn of the Autocrat

After Fidel: The Inside Story of Castro’s Regime and Cuba’s Next Leader, by Brian Latell (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, 288 pages) Fidel: Hollywood’s Favorite Tyrant, by Humberto E. Fontova (Regnery, 2005, 256 pages) Imagine a young man poised to enter the prime of his...

The Rarity of the God-fearing Man

A Michigan farmer, some years ago, climbed to the roof of his silo, and there he painted, in great red letters that the Deity could see, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. . . .” Without knowledge of fear, we cannot know order in personality...

Revisiting Viereck

Conservatism Revisited: The Revolt Against Ideology, by Peter Viereck. With a major new study of Peter Viereck and Conservatism by Claes G. Ryn (Transaction Publishers, 2005, 205 pages) Developments in recent American politics have raised questions about the...

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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