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.

A Problem Deeper than Groupthink

“Now a new volume comes our way from the busy desk of Robert P. George… an essay collection spanning subjects from Catholicism and civic order to ‘gnostic liberalism’ to the interplay of markets and civil society. Despite the broad subject matter, George’s overarching aim in this new collection is to discern how it is that civilization evolved from the ‘Age of Faith’ in the medieval period to the ‘Age of Reason’ of the Enlightenment and its aftermath, only to now arrive at what he calls the ‘Age of Feelings.’” 

Reconsidering Franklin D. Roosevelt

“Roosevelt’s true genius was the practice of politics. But his success at that practice did not come without costs of its own. Roosevelt may well have believed that his political success and his country’s economic recovery would proceed along parallel paths. But the evidence suggests otherwise. In fact, reading Beito leads one to surmise that the Rooseveltian preoccupation with the politics of leadership may well have significantly delayed and even retarded the very recovery that was supposed to result from his leadership.”

A Forgotten Russian Immigrant Poet in Hollywood

“Nostalgia unquestionably captivates all émigrés. There you may be, decades gone from the old country, and glad of it. Yet still you long for the taste of familiar foods, the sight of those Russian birch trees, and the sound of the language you never have the opportunity to speak outside the home.”

Is Religion Becoming Obsolete?

Is Religion Becoming Obsolete?

“It’s obvious that the meaning, function, and practice of religion is changing in the United States. But how exactly? And what does this change mean for the future of traditional forms of religion?”

Still Having Trouble with Gender

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

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

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.”

Educational Counterrevolution 

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

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 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

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 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.

"The first question, and perhaps the most pressing one when reviewing a book by @McCormickProf, is this: Even in the comparatively small world of intellectual conservatism, is there anything George isn’t doing?" - R. McKay Stangler in @ubookman

"Nonetheless, admittedly indirect evidence has been put forth, evidence which at least suggests that Hoover might have been inadvertently onto something when he successfully proposed replacing the notion of a relatively quick “panic” with something more drawn out, maybe even

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