The University Bookman
Reviewing Books that Build Culture
Watch James Panero of the New Criterion discuss “The Urbanity of Russell Kirk” at the 2025 Gerald Russello Memorial Lecture.
Still Having Trouble with Gender
“…Byrne seeks to correct the dominant academic foolishness by clearing away the intellectual weeds that have overgrown the topics of sex and gender. He largely succeeds, but he then provides little guidance as to how we should live with sex and gender.”
Eric Voegelin’s Later Thought
“Drawing on Aristotle and Aquinas, Voegelin diagnosed the ideologue’s mind as one that wishes to objectify the world rather than live in a state of participatory reality with the divine. Conversation with ideologues becomes impossible because they perceive reality as something to dominate and manipulate rather than to understand and comprehend.”
Mark Twain Revisited
“An undisguised cosmopolitan who never wanted to forget his boyhood in the American heartland, Mark Twain was a walking—and strolling—contradiction.”
Restocking Conservatives’ Bookshelves
“A distinct thread connecting these novels is the conscious reflection within them on the importance of reading in forming a healthy and virtuous imagination.”
Educational Counterrevolution
“The central thesis of the book is that the Western Christian paideia that made the American experiment in liberty and self-government possible has nearly been stamped out of the public schools.”
Political Economy Before Adam Smith
“…[the book] is a compilation of various tracts on the intersection of commerce and statecraft—many of which are snapshots of McCulloch’s own free-market beliefs—that serve as a compelling precursor of Smithian political economy.”
Science and Meaning: Parallel Tracks?
“Science is not the sort of activity that can answer the question, ‘Does life have meaning?’ To expect science to answer that question is like expecting your plumber to tell you whether installing fancier bathroom fixtures will make you happier.”
Geopolitics and the Making of the Modern World
“Brands’s book should find a ready audience among those interested in developments in the international scene over the last century. It is particularly effective in dealing with the threat that China’s emerging power and influence pose to the West today…”
The Context for Human Dignity
“While the twentieth century was still sporadically marked by remnants of Christian influence and dominance, the twenty-first has seen the final divorce of the secular and sacred, and the consequences are evident. What Leo XIII warned of, the evils he battled, have been let loose, paradigmatically captured by Artificial Intelligence which poorly imitates and devalues that which makes us essentially human… We would do well then to read Hittinger’s book in reflecting on how to face these challenges.”
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.
"Delsol’s analysis stands out for the breadth of its perspective. Her essay covers topics as varied as corporatism, the French love for status and strikes, immigration, religion and secularism, populism and the role of intellectuals, Jacobinism, and the EU..."
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