The University Bookman
Reviewing Books that Build Culture
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Each week the Bookman brings you fresh reviews of the books that build culture, and essays that enliven the Permanent Things. Last year nearly 90,000 visitors engaged with the Bookman’s reviews, all free of charge and with no advertising to disrupt the reading experience. Our writers are touching hearts and minds across the globe with their reviews, bringing wisdom, creativity, and beauty to bear on the most important conversations happening in literature and culture.
Would you consider a gift to help us continue this work?
If just 1 in 4 of our readers contributed $10, we’d dramatically increase our capacity to recruit the brightest young writers and tackle more books and topics, all with a Kirkian angle. We’ve set a goal of raising $20k this month in order to continue our mission. Exceeding this amount will allow us to expand our work even more.
If you love the Bookman, and read us with regularity, we’d greatly appreciate your generous support this month.
With gratitude,
Luke Sheahan, Ph.D., editor
The University Bookman
P.S. As a special thank you to all Bookman supporters this month, we’ll send you a link to an audio recording of Ex Tenebris, one of Kirk’s best ghostly short stories. We think you’ll really enjoy it.
Campaign Progress
The Woman Who Loved Lord Byron
“Caroline’s life, we might say, was a real-life embodiment of the Byronic hero or heroine.”
Help Yourself
“All Shrier does—and does well—is to put into words, with ample sourcing, the feelings parents have been sharing with each other online and at the morning bus stop. The kids aren’t growing up. They’re a mess. And so are the therapists. “
The “Art of Being” and “The Art of Becoming”
“For Wilson… the best poems are seasoned reflections that develop in waves and ‘become’ informed by faith…”
The Paradoxical Ideology
“Rousseau’s ideas have influenced both theorists and practitioners of democracy, such as Thomas Jefferson, Woodrow Wilson, George W. Bush, John Rawls, Jürgen Habermas, and Jacques Maritain. For Finley, the common thread in this group is belief in the ideology of democratism. For each of these figures, democracy is perceived as the ultimate end for society, akin to religious salvation, and only an elite-controlled oligarchy can represent society’s ‘general will.’ The irony is that this oligarchy employs undemocratic means in the name of democracy to achieve its objectives.”
Democratism and False Equivalence
“Finley argues that advocates of ‘democratism’ have always argued for democracy not as a regime of popular government but as a set of political norms of enlightened public sharing commitments to further liberation from traditional bonds.”
Churchill in His Element
“The River War was not just an adventure for Churchill; it was a foundation for his burgeoning thoughts on the strategy of war.”
Retaining Humanity in the Age of A.I.
“…a more important consideration is how schools can teach students to focus on the value of connecting with other human beings instead of disproportionately focusing on electronics.”
Roosevelt’s Revolution
“The New Deal which emerges from Beito’s narrative is nothing less than a revolution against the American constitutional order.”
Recovering the Idea of Statesmanship
“The originality of Burtka’s approach lies in his effort to restore an even more old-fashioned approach, that of the ‘mirror of princes,’ as the key to taking statesmanship seriously once again.”
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.
Have you read Russell Kirk’s fiction? My dad used to joke that ppl thought there must be two different authors by the same name—one who wrote serious political tomes and the other who wrote supernatural fiction. Story offer below.
What is is like to visit the home of the traditional conservative movement in America?
@mich_enjoyer recently visited the Kirk Center in Mecosta and offers an immersive look at the grounds and ongoing programming of the @KirkCenter.
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