The University Bookman
Reviewing Books that Build Culture
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
“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
“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
“…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?
“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.”
Yuval Levin’s Stirring Defense of the Constitution
“[Levin] believes that, far from being the source of our problems, the American Founding can teach us the best solution to our present discontent. To deal with the growing crisis of faith, he directs our attention to the wisdom at the heart of the Constitution.”
“Putting Civil Back in Civilization”
“Hudson urgently reminds us that if we cannot live civilly with one another, we may have reached the limits of our democratic ‘proposition,’ as Lincoln called it. Hudson has rightfully re-introduced civility into our vocabulary and, in doing so, raises an inspirational ideal and draws a ‘line-in-the-sand’ by which to judge behavior.”
Here’s Why Not
“Goligher sets this Christian view against the secular view now reigning in healthcare: that humans have extrinsic value. To treat humans as creatures with extrinsic value—meaning they have value only for what they can do, not for what they are—is to treat humans as things that produce value as opposed to persons who are valuable in and of themselves.”
Gentlemen Losers
“Yet I suspect that one reason Steely Dan’s star has risen in our own day is that they cannot be exclusively claimed by cultural progressives. Whatever the personal convictions of Fagen and Becker might have been, their songs capture a certain temperamental conservatism, equal parts cynicism towards the promise of a brighter tomorrow and yearning for a sense of social order long past, that feels right at home in our age of fractured shabbiness. Combine this sensibility with the band’s relentless pursuit of aesthetic perfection, and you have a recipe for music that greatly appeals to a certain segment of young fogeys more indebted to T.S. Eliot than to Charlie Kirk.”
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.
Kirk saw poetry, fiction, tradition, and restraint as essential to understanding America and preserving its character. In his review of "On America," @cjscalia explores Kirk’s vision of the founding, statesmanship, literature, and the enduring ideas that have shaped the republic.
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