The University Bookman

Reviewing Books that Build Culture

What the American Revolution Secured: Order, Justice, and Freedom

Throughout the semiquincentennial year celebrating America’s independence, The University Bookman will invite a range of writers and speakers to contribute to a series drawing upon Russell Kirk’s work on the American Revolution and the constitutional order it secured.

Joseph Story and the Politics of the Early Republic

“the central theme of Clarke’s study is the extent to which the case for the federal common law rests on a thoroughly nationalist understanding of the American founding and union. At a basic level, a common law requires a common people. But even more importantly, Story needed a narrative of consolidated American nationhood to fill the yawning gap in his theory—that there was never any direct, national adoption of the common law.”

Listening to the Law, and Now Speaking It

“Justice Barrett thus roots an originalist mode of judging in history and tradition. Judging rightly is an inherently conservative endeavor: the judiciary’s very claim to review the work of the political branches draws each political act back to past writing, either in the Constitution or the United States Code. Keeping our politics within the scope of ordered liberty—and most importantly a written text—makes the judiciary the branch that preserves and tempers us in the face of the revolutionary instinct to throw off the so-called ‘dead hand of the past.’” 

One Man’s Journey to Faith

“Regardless of one’s beliefs, Charles Murray’s [book] must be acknowledged as a notable work. It is a heartfelt account of one man’s (actually, one couple’s) acceptance of religious faith and of Christianity in particular, and while not a work of scholarship, it is informed by extensive reading and decades of thought. Like the work of C.S. Lewis, which inspired Murray’s turn toward Christianity, it is written in an admirably direct and accessible style.”

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...

A Touchstone of Eloquence and Wisdom

Creed & Culture: A Touchstone Reader Edited with an introduction by James M. Kushiner. ISI Books (Wilmington, Delaware), xv + 239 pp., $15.00 paper, 2003. “If Christian dogma is irrelevant to life, to what, in Heaven’s name, is it relevant?—since...

On Not Thinking in Slogans

The American Cause by Russell Kirk. Edited with a new Introduction by Gleaves Whitney. ISI Books (Wilmington, Delaware), xxii, 169 pp., $13.00 paper, 2002. This is a most appropriate time for the appearance of this short book, ably edited by Gleaves Whitney, aide and...

Behold the Reign of Man!

Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt: Toward a Secular Theocracy by Paul Gottfried. University of Missouri Press (Columbia and London) 158 pp., $34.95 cloth, 2002. While shaken by the imbroglio of post-victory Iraq, many American conservatives nevertheless...

A Conversation with Joseph Pearce

In an office just off a busy street in Ypsilanti, Michigan, the Writer-in-Residence at Ave Maria College sits down to his work. This is Joseph Pearce, one of the preeminent writers of Catholic/Christian biography today and co-editor of the bimonthly St. Austin Review....

Conservatives and the Environmental Question

Hard Green: Saving the Environment from the Environmentalists; A Conservative Manifesto by Peter Huber. Basic Books (New York, New York), 224 pp., $15.00 paper, 1999. The Greening of Conservative America by John R. E. Bliese. Westview Press (Boulder, Colorado), 339...

Awakening the Moral Imagination

Fall 1999 If the events of the past year have demonstrated anything it is the moral and intellectual impoverishment of the American people. From Monica to Littleton the tragic consequences of this fact have been played out on a dizzying scale. Sadly, the road back...

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.

Joseph Story and the Politics of the Early Republic
John Grove on "Contending for American Nationhood: Joseph Story and the Debate Over a Federal Common Law" by Benjamin Clark. @BloomsburyPub @Liberty_Fund

Listening to the Law, and Now Speaking It
James V. F. Dickey on "Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution" by Amy Coney Barrett. @slf_liberty @SCOTUSblog

Load More

Shop through Regnery
Support the Kirk Center
& University Bookman