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.”

Two Tales of Watergate

Two Tales of Watergate

“To commemorate the fifty year mark we now have not one, but two, new books to add to the ever-mounting bibliography of Watergate-related tomes.”

These Roman Things

These Roman Things

“As Jones struggled with his ‘technolatrous’ age, he took ancient Rome as a lodestar for navigating ‘this distressful epoch.'”

Where Conservatives Converse

Where Conservatives Converse

“It has been nearly sixty years since the founding of the Philadelphia… and its growth and development over the years as an intellectual home for all conservatives who accepted the premise of ordered liberty, is a testimony to the founders and those who have long carried on the legacy of the Society and its principles.”

Sexuality and Gender: Returning to the Sources

Sexuality and Gender: Returning to the Sources

Once in a very long while one finds a volume that checks four boxes: It is a joy to read; academically fair and well-informed; timely enough to be essential reading in a current debate; and not so thick that it can double as a doorstop. Brian Patrick Mitchell’s book on Christian sexuality and gender is such a rarity. One is tempted to add that in the current cultural climate, with so much errant nonsense being written about sexuality and gender, that his book should be required reading for any wanting to opine on the topic.

Unlikely Centers of Cultural Change

Unlikely Centers of Cultural Change

For a time, then, coffeehouses exercised a crucial but (today) largely unremarked influence upon the fashioning of Anglo-American civilization. Mr. Reynolds’s fine book seeks to remedy that deficiency.

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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