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.

John Lukács: The Consciousness—and Conscience—of an Historian

“Rather, ‘history’ is an irreducibly human cognitive and moral activity that shapes identity, yields personal and collective meaning, and embodies how people understand their present and future. For Lukács, every person is a ‘historian’ because all human persons live with memories and interpretations of their past.”

Continually Revising History

“[The book] is a rich resource for Voegelin scholars to consult for their own academic and intellectual pursuits.”

G. K. Chesterton, Friend of Truth

“Each essay is well worth reading on its own, which should be the case whether you are a trained philosopher or something less—or more—than that.”

Help Me Read the Word

Help Me Read the Word

“Womack introduces important concepts and provides helpful tools to her fellow Bible Nerds to discover the richness of the Word. She also effectively details the different genres of Scripture. These concepts, tools, and details are woven together with personal anecdotes that make the text easily relatable. The author’s love of Scripture shines through, and it can only help anyone honestly pursuing the truth of God’s Word.”

The Long Decline of Liberalism

The Long Decline of Liberalism

“Pilkington describes the many societal ills that this destruction of hierarchies entailed… While Pilkington’s diagnosis of liberalism as the source of these diseases seems sound, his confidence that global liberalism is collapsing rapidly and that the immediate future will be ‘post-liberal’ leaves me uneasy. Even if we grant that liberalism is an inherently unstable way of organizing a polity, does that really allow us to predict just how rapidly that instability will lead to a downfall?”

The British Empire on Trial

The British Empire on Trial

“[Biggar’s] book amounts to a defense of the British Empire. He succeeds at giving the reader ample reasons not to hate his home country, but also misses an opportunity to use his unique training to pioneer a more innovative form of history.”

Ulyssean Interrogations at Dusk, or Slowing Down at 65

Ulyssean Interrogations at Dusk, or Slowing Down at 65

“Odysseus himself was offered immortality by the nymph Calypso—and refused it. He chose instead to return to his wife Penelope, a mortal woman who would age. He chose to return to a finite life marked by loss, memory, and longing; and in that choice, I have always thought, lies his greatest courage—and his deepest wisdom… I hope and I believe that I would have made the same Ulyssean decision.”

Smithian Wisdom on Demand

Smithian Wisdom on Demand

“Even readers who disagree with the collection’s broad normative valence will find that it consistently models a way of reading Smith as a unified thinker about persons-in-society—morally formed agents embedded in evolving rules, conventions, and institutions.”

In Praise of Poetry and Form

In Praise of Poetry and Form

“Majmudar often takes the long view, and from the long view, free verse is a new arrival in a variegated poetic history that stretches back into prehistory. To embrace it alone is to cut oneself off from that sweeping history and from the resources to be found there. There is still vitality in these neglected traditions. They are not a dead past.”

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.

Register for our next book gallery on June 22, 2026:
Russell Kirk On America: How to Understand the Legacy of 1776

The Midwestern Gothic Stories of Eric Cyr
@NadyaWilliams81 on "Here It Snows in June & Other Stories" by Eric Cyr. @WisebloodBooks

And I Will Go to the Altar of God
Jesse Russell reviews "On the Altar: A History of Sacrifice from the Sacred to the Secular" by Jonathan Sheehan. @PrincetonUPress

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