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 the Republic: Tacitus on the End of a Free State

“…you don’t really have to ‘wonder’ if you’ve lost the republic… This is one of the lessons of the first few paragraphs of Tacitus’ Annals. In this dour, grumpy review of the first decades of the Roman Empire, Tacitus gives us seven signs that the republic is well and truly dead.”

Why Cervantes’ Don Quixote Matters

Don Quixote makes life the protagonist. The affirmation of life is truly Don Quixote’s quest. The venerable knight-errant seeks more than life from his life.”

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.”

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...

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 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.

After Ideology but Before the Revolution: The Liberal Soul
Barry Cooper on The Growth of the Liberal Soul (2nd Edition) by David Walsh. @undpress

Liberalism’s Death Has Been Greatly Exaggerated
Joseph R. Fornieri on The Growth of the Liberal Soul (2nd Edition) by David Walsh. @undpress

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