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 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.”

Liberalism’s Death Has Been Greatly Exaggerated

“In this profound work, Walsh engages the friends and foes of liberalism alike to reveal its enduring appeal and resilience. Throughout he urges us to consider liberalism not so much as a stale academic doctrine, but as a lived experience rooted in the core belief of the inviolable dignity of each person as a free and rational being.”

The Paradox of Liberal Resilience

“The defense of inner liberty seems always to come as the long-awaited response and corrective to the modern state’s interventions…”

Mr. Shakespeare’s Plays

On Essays and Letters Under the listings of Shakespeare, the Internet abounds in essays, reviews, texts, and comments, almost anything one can imagine about his works and about works explaining his works. My Viking Edition of Shakespeare comes to 1,471 pages. I...

The Odds According to Whom?

Intelligence Was My Line: Inside Eisenhower’s Other Command by Ralph Hauenstein and Donald Markle. Hippocrene Books (New York), 182 pp., $24.95 cloth, 2005. There cannot be many WWII veterans still active in public life like Ralph Hauenstein: nearly ninety-four...

Plucking Out the Heart of Shakespeare’s Mystery

Shadowplay: The Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare by Claire Asquith. Public Affairs (New York), xviii + 348 pp., $26.00, cloth, 2005. With the publication of Shadowplay, Clare Asquith joins the growing number of scholars who maintain not merely...

Permanent Things Here and Abroad

The University Bookman has long been concerned with issues of the nature of history and historical memory. We are therefore pleased to present in this issue a major review-essay on historical thinking, by Mark G. Malvasi. Malvasi captures the complexity of the debate,...

Current Problems and Eternal Questions

This issue of The University Bookman engages several subjects close to the heart of Russell Kirk’s work and vision in founding this journal. The study of history helps us to determine the underlying reality, what Kirk called the Logos, of the human condition. In...

Our Neighbors and the Ground Beneath Us

We are very pleased to present you with this issue of the University Bookman. As befitting a quarterly devoted to serious books, the reviews cover numerous subjects with, we believe, learning and clear writing in explication of the major issues of our age. Continuing...

History and the Moral Imagination

Historical Consciousness: The Remembered Past by John Lukacs Reprinted by Transaction Publishers (Library of Conservative Thought), 1994. Review reprinted from The Sewanee Review, Spring 1969, Volume LXXVII, Number 2. Applying a philosophical intellect to the study of...

Kirk on Imagination

Mere unthinking negative opposition to the current of events, clutching in despair at what we still retain, will not suffice in this age. A conservatism of instinct must be reinforced by a conservatism of thought and imagination.

NYT on Kirk

Russell Kirk’s 1953 book The Conservative Mind gave American conservatives an identity and a genealogy and catalyzed the postwar conservative movement.

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.

"Delsol’s analysis stands out for the breadth of its perspective. Her essay covers topics as varied as corporatism, the French love for status and strikes, immigration, religion and secularism, populism and the role of intellectuals, Jacobinism, and the EU..."

Cracking the Code to Civilization
@CliffordBates12 on "The Code of Man: Love, Courage, Pride, Family, Country" (2nd Edition) by @waller_newell

Load More

Shop through Regnery
Support the Kirk Center
& University Bookman