The University Bookman

Reviewing Books that Build Culture

Join friends of the Bookman in New York City on December 8, 2025 for the Gerald Russello Memorial Lecture.

William F. Buckley Jr.: Literary Figure 

“…the American public intellectual might best be appreciated as a literary figure. Producing about 350,000 words for publication yearly at the peak of his career, Buckley was never at a loss for what to say or how to say it.”

Defending the Christian Faith

“In 100 Tough Questions For Catholics: Common Obstacles To Faith Today… David G. Bonagura, Jr. gives bite-sized answers to dozens of big questions about the faith.”

Robert Nisbet’s The Social Philosophers Revisited: Conservative Pluralism versus the Mania for Unity

“…Nisbet shows that freedom and nobility (or excellence) can only survive when civic and social pluralism allows authentic human individuality and real (as opposed to ideologically-induced) community ample room to flourish.”

The Social Philosophers: A Reading for the Present

“…in Nisbet’s reading, conflict fulfills a paradoxical function: it is, to a large extent, the experience of uprooting and rupture that most strongly awakens the need for community. In other words, the longing for community becomes more conscious and pressing where community has been lost or weakened.”

A Sociology of the Permanent Things: Nisbet’s Tocquevillian Philosophy

“The great crisis of our time, which Tocqueville prophesied and Nisbet diagnosed, is the collapse of those intermediary institutions that can resist the drift toward democratic despotism.”

We Few, We Happy Few

We Few, We Happy Few

“For a humanistic revival to have a chance in the present, those attracted to the ideas of Babbitt and More need to forge friendships, foster communities, and coordinate efforts to bring these ideas to bear on the culture.”

Of Man and Lost Time

Of Man and Lost Time

“Herzog’s tale explores the surreal quality of a modern-day Robinson Crusoe-like story of a man who has lived in what appears to be a dream world.”

The Novel: We Need It

The Novel: We Need It

“What is at stake is the development of a sense of humane understanding, and the decline of this form of understanding surely has much to do with the mounting divisiveness and partisanship in our society today.”

Good Economics on a Human Scale

Good Economics on a Human Scale

“Alexander Salter has written an important book, examining how the political program of distributism can inform contemporary debates about political economy.”

The Book Gallery

A collection of conversations with Bookman editor Luke C. Sheahan and writers and authors of imagination and erudition.

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