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.

The Audacious Russell Kirk

“Neither Eliot nor Kirk would justify surrender in the face of conflict, especially when order in the commonwealth is at stake.”

The Imaginative Russell Kirk

“Michael Lucchese has gathered 17 essays in which Kirk discusses not only the Founding, but also the nation that the Revolution created, the distinctive nature of the people who imagined and developed it, and the traditions they inherited and adapted.”

Remembering Robert Fagles: From Suffering to Meaning

“[Fagles] took as the essence of tragedy Aeschylus’s phrase ‘pathei mathos,’ ‘learning via suffering,’ which contained in it the belief that we could reap a harvest of knowledge from the pain.”

The Fourth Awokening and Its Discontents

The Fourth Awokening and Its Discontents

“Each of the ‘Great Awokenings’ thus have a common cause: elite overproduction, a situation in which there are more people who feel entitled to elite positions than there are such positions available.”

Dissonance and Faith

Dissonance and Faith

“While billed as an accessible and clarifying introductory guide to the ideas that shaped the New Testament, I would not endorse this description of Spencer’s book. It is not a book for beginners, nor an introduction, nor a clarifying guide. It is, rather, a mineshaft—dark, with dim lighting—in which the wary may yet strike treasure.”

Prudence in the Political Philosophy of George Washington

Prudence in the Political Philosophy of George Washington

“What is apparent from reading Washington’s private letters and public documents is that his political ideas were formed from experience and sober assumptions about the possibilities of politics. He was repeatedly reminded by his experience in political affairs of the limits and challenges of politics.”

Hope in the Past, Hope in the Future

Hope in the Past, Hope in the Future

“Stephen Presley proposes a model of cultural engagement that looks to the earliest centuries of the Church, its fledgling period before the so-called ‘Constantinian shift.’ Given the ongoing dismantling of the structures of Christendom, the earliest period of the Church offers an ever more fitting parallel to ours, one in which religious devotion is regarded not merely as irrelevant but increasingly as a threat to social order.”

The Sacredness of Life: An Unbought Grace

The Sacredness of Life: An Unbought Grace

“Two new books by former abortion providers chronicle how far this noble profession has fallen from grace, as it has been corrupted by the avarice and dull materialism of our age. They also show how the nobility of the physician can be reclaimed by returning to first principles and recognizing the sacredness of life…”

The Social Gospel for Our Times

The Social Gospel for Our Times

“Newson’s privileging of our temporal horizontal relationships with one another over our spiritual vertical relationship with God… has the tendency to reduce all human relationships to material ones rooted in power.”

Political Exodus in America

Political Exodus in America

“…we have in American Refugees a quite worthwhile and entertaining discussion of the experience of one refugee’s relocation from the most liberal of states to one of the most conservative, though conservative in ways that the author did not entirely anticipate.”

Can the United States Have a Good History?

Can the United States Have a Good History?

“Midwesterners believed in Christianity, optimism, tolerance, local involvement, equality, and embracing hard work, including physical work, while avoiding luxury. They lived out their values by extensive reading, attending public lectures, and founding colleges and primary schools that taught character.”

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.

The Audacious Russell Kirk
Bruce P. Frohnen reviews "On America: How to Understand the Legacy of 1776" by Russell Kirk. Edited by Michael Lucchese.

The Imaginative Russell Kirk
@cjscalia reviews On America: How to Understand the Legacy of 1776. By Russell Kirk. Edited by Michael Lucchese.

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