The University Bookman
Reviewing Books that Build Culture
A Knight of the American West
“His new book is an exciting chivalric adventure and romance, while also being a contemporary American novel set in the Southwest USA. Exceptionally well written, its straightforward crafting is an encouragement to the reader who eagerly returns to its pages.”
Coming to Terms with Sherman
“…Glenn Arbery has contemporary America down cold, the more so since the cultural variations between North and South are far from being as marked as they were even fifty years ago.”
Solzhenitsyn and the Spirituality of Self-Limitation
“…any so-called ‘progress’ or advancement of society must begin, always and everywhere, in the soul of the individual—not in the revolutionary fantasies of radical social reformers, whose aims work to dissolve the spiritual bonds that underlie the traditional fabric of human communities.”
How Should We Think About Inequality?
“The book’s ultimate claim is not that the rich are virtuous, but that a democracy hostile to wealth will not become more equal—it will become more centralized, more bureaucratic, and less free. In that sense, McGinnis’s argument is less a defense of inequality than a defense of constitutional humility.”
Enchanting Criticism: Dana Gioia as Literary Critic
“Gioia’s latest book is a testament to the persistence of authentic criticism in an age suspicious of and even hostile to literary values.”
The Machine or the Garden?
“What Kingsnorth brilliantly exposes in Against the Machine is how the progressive vision of scientific, industrial, and technological progress is actually destroying the wisdom of the past in its merciless pursuit of perfection. Kingsnorth reminds us of the great taboo of modernity: ‘There is no such thing as a perfect society, and anyone who tries to build one will either go mad or become a tyrant.’”
What Plato Meant
“…Princeton University philosopher and political theorist Melissa Lane explores Plato’s notion of rule and governorship, attempting to refresh the humanistic, liberal reading of Plato’s political theory.”
After the Republic: Tacitus on the End of a Free State
“…you don’t really have to ‘wonder’ if you’ve lost the republic… This is one of the lessons of the first few paragraphs of Tacitus’ Annals. In this dour, grumpy review of the first decades of the Roman Empire, Tacitus gives us seven signs that the republic is well and truly dead.”
Why Cervantes’ Don Quixote Matters
“Don Quixote makes life the protagonist. The affirmation of life is truly Don Quixote’s quest. The venerable knight-errant seeks more than life from his life.”
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.
.@JM_Butcher himself admits that there are in fact important divisions within American society, but he believes that “Americans are united on some very important questions that are driving debates in statehouses, schoolhouses, and even your house.” In this, as in nearly all that
Despite [Kirk's] and others’ efforts to prevent further decline in transcendent beliefs, more than a century later, it is clear that those Americans who adhere to them represent a small and frequently marginalized minority. @fhmcclatchey must be counted among their number, for he
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