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.”

A Tribute to Russell Kirk

The death of Russell Kirk is an irreplaceable loss not only to his family and friends but to this review as well. For over thirty-three years he edited this publication, reminding us that education has for its ultimate ends wisdom and virtue. We present this special...

Correcting the Record

In her enjoyable new book, Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got it Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First, Mona Charen quotes the response of the historian Henry Steele Commager to President Reagan’s famous “evil empire” speech in March 1983....

The Splendor of Dedication

At the time of death, the tangibility is felt first in mourning . . . Mourning is real and honest. Indeed we mourn our loss of Russell Kirk. But other threads are woven into the fabric of loss. Our sense of loss should be convertible into equal measures of gratitude...

The Decline of the Liberal Imagination

The two dominant systems of thought in our time are conservatism and liberalism. Of course, there are many variants of the two, but with the demise of Marxism, they remain the principal political movements vying for ascendancy over the minds of men. In the previous...

Permanence and Change

By Russell Kirk From Prospects for Conservatives (Regnery Gateway edition, 1989) he liveliest definition of the word conservative is Ambrose Bierce's in The Devil's Dictionary: "Conservative, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as...

Returning ‘To the Point’

Russell Kirk, as every reader of the University Bookman knows well, was a man of letters. Kirk’s books, essays, lectures, reviews, and stories deservedly have received much attention, but he is not known today as a columnist. I thought this was a shame, since surely...

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

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