The University Bookman
Reviewing Books that Build Culture
Two Cities: The Public and the Private
“The era of superlatives, the French Revolution, was the time when real people, tired of their private sufferings, abandoned their real names to become citoyens… Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, and other pompous terms, took the place of the real, little, and unwordable affections, turning friends into foes, in the name of an unreal solidarity.”
Remembering Our Unruly Character
“…Frohnen and McAllister are explicit… that Americans must ‘rediscover’ their unruly character, and it becomes clear that their efforts to mine the historical roots of this defiant, ornery nature are grounded in a concern to push back and save the American way of life…”
Why Public Reason Fails
“It is only at a local level that true political deliberation among citizens can take place. Holston’s central message is that, if deliberative democrats are serious about their enterprise, they ought to be working to devolve decision making to the local level as far as possible.”
Friends, Countrymen, Romans
“…America has been many things, but, in a certain sense, it has always been Roman.”
Counting the Costs of the Second Great War
“…April 1945 was especially critical in my combat service in the European conflict in World War II.”
Philosophy and the Meaningful Life
“As Augustine realized, it is not enough to merely know the good, the true and the beautiful. We must lead our lives in conformity with them.”
Why Beauty Matters
“…the cultivation of beauty is an education in itself, a discipline that must be practiced in daily life.”
Christian Freedom and the Western Political Tradition
“For Schindler, there is no tradition without freedom, and no freedom without tradition. These ideas are a precious heritage to be guarded with great care, because they are a gift of the wise born before the present and the God who inspired their wisdom.”
The Spiritualist Origins of Modern Disorder
“…the dominant characteristic of the new spirituality was the inflation, as egregious as it was absurd, of thought, of language, and of self: every man (or woman) a prophet, every man his own priest, every man a genius, each dedicated to what Dominic Green calls ‘the aristocrat within.’”
The Book Gallery
A collection of conversations with Bookman editor Luke C. Sheahan and writers and authors of imagination and erudition.