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.

A Heroic Little Sparrow Shines Brightly in the Dark World of Children’s Literature

“The story is as delightful and charming as it sounds, recounting the odyssey of a virtuous sparrow named Passer who must move his family to a new home after ‘big yellow machines’ appear at his home.”

Ulyssean Interrogations at Dusk, or Slowing Down at 65

“Odysseus himself was offered immortality by the nymph Calypso—and refused it. He chose instead to return to his wife Penelope, a mortal woman who would age. He chose to return to a finite life marked by loss, memory, and longing; and in that choice, I have always thought, lies his greatest courage—and his deepest wisdom… I hope and I believe that I would have made the same Ulyssean decision.”

From the Man Who Loved America

“Angelo Codevilla advanced and argued for an anti-Wilsonian approach to both American foreign and American domestic policy.”

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...

Reconstructing Rights

The Bill of Rights: Creation and Reconstruction by Akhil Reed Amar (Yale University Press, 1998, 2005), 430 pages According to conventional understanding, the primary purpose behind the framing and ratification of the Constitution was to preserve liberty through a...

Liberalism and the Family Romance

John Stuart Mill, by Nicholas Capaldi (Cambridge 2004) A wickedly funny Monty Python song about the fondness of great thinkers for spiritus fermenti asserts how, “John Stuart Mill, of his own free will, drank half a pint of shandy, was particularly ill.”...

Books in Little

The Meaning of Marriage: Family, State, Market, and Morals, edited by Robert George and Jean Bethke Elshtain (Spence Publishing, 316 pp. $29.95) The meaning of marriage has become a prime subject of the culture wars. The subject is itself extremely difficult to...

Old China

On Essays and Letters On December 31, 2003, I chanced to come across the essay of Charles Lamb (1775–1834) entitled, “Old China.” Naturally, I thought it was about Ancient China. “China,” however, new or old, turned out to be...

Historical Consciousness and Its Enemies

The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past, by John Lewis Gaddis (Oxford 2004) The Limits of History, by Constantin Fasolt (Chicago 2003) During the eighteenth century history flourished as literature. By the 1770s, however, a German school of...

Faith and the Marketplace

Business and Religion: A Clash of Civilizations? edited by Nicholas Capaldi (M&M Scrivener Press, 2005), 442 pages. This book is the first in a series published by M&M Scrivener Press, and edited by Nicholas Capaldi, the Legendre-Soule Distinguished Chair of...

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.

Smithian Wisdom on Demand
@mungowitz on "Just Sentiments: 22 More Smithian Essays" Edited by Daniel B. Klein and @erikwmatson
CL Press/Fraser Institute

From the Man Who Loved America
Chuck Chalberg on "Fighting Enemies Foreign and Domestic: The Legacy of Angelo M. Codevilla," Edited by @RpwWilliams @EncounterBooks

Load More

Shop through Regnery
Support the Kirk Center
& University Bookman