The University Bookman

Reviewing Books that Build Culture

What the American Revolution Secured: Order, Justice, and Freedom

Throughout the semiquincentennial year celebrating America’s independence, The University Bookman will invite a range of writers and speakers to contribute to a series drawing upon Russell Kirk’s work on the American Revolution and the constitutional order it secured.

How Charlotte Brontë Became Charlotte Brontë

“Graham Watson’s biography of Charlotte is a judiciously researched and well-written overview of the final years of Charlotte’s life… readers will learn just how central Charlotte was to the literary establishment that both praised and scorned her.”

C.S. Lewis and Gender Ideology

“…[Herring] hopes that his exploration of Lewis’ work will inspire and equip Christian readers to understand and respond to our culture’s gender confusion.”

The Case for the Messiah

“…Catholic Answers apologist Jimmy Akin… explores the ancient Jewish idea of the Messiah, along with the historical evidence for Christ, arguing that Jesus is indeed the anointed one foretold in the Old Testament.”

Natural Law in the Protestant Tradition

Natural Law in the Protestant Tradition

“Jensen’s recent book… makes an important contribution to the aforementioned Aufklärung of Protestant natural law, particularly for the way in which it situates the Wittenberg reformer’s various statements about natural law in historical and polemical context rather than painting a picture of… seamless development…”

Identity Politics as Ersatz Religion

Identity Politics as Ersatz Religion

“As Mitchell sees it, there is only one path back from the ‘debilitating pathology’ of identity politics. It is for a community of thoughtful individuals to build, or rebuild, a society of honest ‘face-to-face’ relationships and a ‘politics of competence,’ and thereby restore a society in which individuals are judged on virtue, merit, and conduct rather than affiliation with one or more distinct identity groups.”

From The Quest for Community to the Restoration of Authority

The Quest for Community at 70

“Democracy, as Nisbet imagined it, was not the opposite of fascism and communism, but, in its essence, possibly as totalitarian as either, just in a kinder, more gentle fashion.”

Kirk 101: The Politics of Prudence

Kirk 101: The Politics of Prudence

“The vision of Politics of Prudence is as an inoculation against the ‘sham religion and sham philosophy’ of ideology. It is not a better ideology that we need, but rather none at all.”

Kirk 101: The Politics of Prudence

The Prophet of Imprudence

“As the conservative mind is again on the defensive in America… The Politics of Prudence suggests that no less than the imprudence of conservatives is much to blame for the latest rout. Thirty years ago, few conservatives wanted to hear such a message. Today it calls out as a testament to what went wrong and a corrective for what’s to come.”

Kirk 101: The Politics of Prudence

The Politics of Prudence: Introduction to the 2023 Edition

“The politics of prudence assumes that imperfection is a permanent part of human character and human society. We grope toward a tolerable order that accepts imperfection, the devil we know, while avoiding greater evils, the devil we do not know. Preservation of civilization, as imperfect as it is, is the conservative’s work.”

Germans at War

Germans at War

“…Oxford military historian Peter H. Wilson attempts to take aim at another popular narrative about World War II: that Germans are essentially militant people whose history inevitably led to World War II and National Socialism.”

The Conscience of a Nation

The Conscience of a Nation

“Examining the work and lives of prominent African Americans in the nation’s history, Rogers argues that these individuals sought to transform the United States into a racially just society by having Americans live up to the country’s democratic ideals.”

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.

Harvey Mansfield’s Long Dissent
@AdamKissel on "Where Harvard Went Wrong: Fifty Years of Commentary That Fell on Deaf Ears" by Harvey C. Mansfield. @EncounterBooks

Hebraic Ideas at the Founding
Daniel James Sundahl on "Jewish Roots of American Liberty: The Impact of Hebraic Ideas on the American Story," Edited By Wilfred McClay and Stuart Halpern.
@EncounterBooks

Load More

Subscribe and receive the Bookman weekly in your inbox.

* indicates required

Shop through Creed & Culture
Support the Kirk Center
& University Bookman