The University Bookman

Reviewing Books that Build Culture

The Wolfe Who Cried Kirk

In the pages of the once-respectable New Republic, Alan Wolfe has written a scurrilous attack on Russell Kirk in the guise of a review of the recently published collection entitled The Essential Russell Kirk. The review is noteworthy not for its ugliness or completely...

Tiber, Thames, Potomac

That the First Amendment establishes a “separation” between church and state throughout all levels of government has long been a stubborn myth of American life, shared by both nativists and, at least since the early part of the last century, most liberals. Philip...

Awakening the Moral Imagination

Fall 1999 If the events of the past year have demonstrated anything it is the moral and intellectual impoverishment of the American people. From Monica to Littleton the tragic consequences of this fact have been played out on a dizzying scale. Sadly, the road back...

The Waters of Ius and Freedom

“[Hawley] attempts to convince us that Cicero is an invaluable resource for an introduction to Western philosophy. He is the true republican symbol that links the common liberty of popular sovereignty to the private liberty of individuals.”

Gateway to the Dissident Right

“…MacIntyre explains how the COVID lockdowns and 2020 riots made America unrecognizable to him, prompting study into thinkers of more hard-nosed questions of power relationships. A conventional understanding of America’s Constitution as protecting against arbitrary government power did not explain what was really happening, hence a question: ‘what if the story our leaders have repeated endlessly about liberal democracy and popular sovereignty has actual served to expand the power of the state to unprecedented levels, all while assuring the ruled that they live in an era of freedom unlike any that’s ever been experienced?’ From this paradox, MacIntyre advances his understanding of the ‘total state.’” 

Susan Cooper on the Moral Imagination in Fantasy Fiction

“From stories about brave warriors battling mighty dragons to epic sagas about magic rings and lyrical Arthurian tales set among mist-shrouded mountains, fantasy fiction has always connected with readers at the deepest level. Among the best writers of this genre is Susan Cooper, who writes beautifully poetic stories, like those of Tolkien and Lewis, that we will have with us for generations.”

Men Rode to Catraeth

Men Rode to Catraeth

“Clarke reworks one of the most significant early Welsh poems into a modern song that anyone can appreciate. She reminds us that poetry must first and foremost move its readers, must cast a spell of words and rhythm that incites our passions and our imaginations.”

The Causes of Moral Agency

The Causes of Moral Agency

“Particularly in these hyper-polarized times, conservatives should be the first to break out of the blame-the-system-versus-blame-the-victim false dichotomy.”

Resurrecting John Keats

Resurrecting John Keats

“Lucasta Miller, in her brilliant new book on Keats, writes, ‘To read him is to participate in an invisible web that has connected human beings over millennia via the literary imagination.'”

Partisan Citizens

Partisan Citizens

“Citizenship demands open-minded discourse among persons from different backgrounds and with varying ideas in the interest of forming and preserving a consensus concerning the most advisable form of government.”

The Traditions That Gave Us Homer

The Traditions That Gave Us Homer

“Parry… ultimately became the most influential Classical—and perhaps literary—scholar of the twentieth-century precisely because he was able to side-step the Homeric Question altogether.”

The Book Gallery

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

The Waters of Ius and Freedom---"Natural Law Republicanism: Cicero’s Liberal Legacy" by
Michael C. Hawley. @OUPAcademic.
Reviewed by @Prof_Sprunk.

Gateway to the Dissident Right----Review of "The Total State: How Liberal Democracies Become Tyrannies" by @AuronMacintyre @Regnery
Reviewed by Christopher Lightcap and @tomsarroufjr @isi

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