Eight Conservative Historians

Eight Conservative Historians

by | Apr 12, 2015

History, Historians, and Conservatism in Britain and America: From the Great War to Thatcher and Reagan by Reba N. Soffer. Oxford University Press, 2009. Hardcover, 345 pages, $125. Reviewed by John M. Vella Having written several essays on British conservative...

Epistolary Gems

by | Apr 7, 2015

The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Vol. 5: 1930–1931 edited by Valerie Eliot and John Haffenden. London: Faber & Faber, 2014; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015. Hardcover, 878 pages, $45/$85. “If I could destroy every letter I have ever written in my life I would do...

Naming Crimethink

by | Apr 6, 2015

The first three months of 2015 at the Bookman have been busy, and fruitful. We continue to feature reviews of books and ideas that further our defense of the Permanent Things. The current scene embodies much of what Orwell called crimethink. Ideas that were...

Studying Man and Making Man

by | Apr 6, 2015

The Logic of the Cultural Sciences by Ernst Cassirer, translated by S. G. Lofts. Yale University Press, [1942] 2000. Paperback, 190 pages, $22.Few debates have remained as persistent in our times as the controversy over the respective provinces of the sciences and the...

Evangelical Culture, Then and Now

by | Mar 29, 2015

Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into the Evangelical Subculture in America, 25th Anniversary Edition by Randall Balmer. Oxford University Press, 2014. Paperback, 432 pages, $25.To read Randall Balmer’s Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory as an evangelical in 2015,...

Neuhaus Described, If Not Explained

by | Mar 29, 2015

Richard John Neuhaus: A Life in the Public Square by Randy Boyagoda. Image, 2015. Hardcover, 480 pages, $30.From the mid-1960s up until his death in 2009, Richard John Neuhaus was one of America’s leading clergymen and public intellectuals. In his new biography, Randy...

Mis-Judging Law, Meaning, and Justice

by | Mar 23, 2015

Judging Statutes by Robert A. Katzmann. Oxford University Press, 2014. Hardcover, 184 pages, $25.It is safe to say that, with some notable exceptions (for example, Chief Justice Roberts’s 2012 opinion saving Obamacare from itself by substituting the word “tax” for the...

Rehabilitating MacArthur

by | Mar 23, 2015

The Most Dangerous Man in America: The Making of Douglas MacArthur by Mark Perry. Basic Books, 2014. Hardcover, 380 pages, $30. Supreme Commander: MacArthur’s Triumph in Japan by Seymour Morris, Jr. Harper Collins, 2014. Hardcover, 363 pages, $27. The historical...

Birzer on Kirk

by | Mar 20, 2015

An interview with Brad Birzer, incumbent of the Russell Amos Kirk Chair in History at Hillsdale College, is the feature article in the most recent issue of Religion and Liberty from the Acton Institute. Birzer discusses his new biography, Russell Kirk: A Conservative...

Lubbers on the Liberal Arts

by | Mar 20, 2015

Listen or read here as Arend D. Lubbers, Grand Valley State University President Emeritus and longest serving college president in the country, speaks on the importance of a liberal arts education. President Lubbers has been a longtime friend of the Kirk family and...