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Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America
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About This Book
In 1951, with the publication of God and Man at Yale, a scathing attack on his alma mater, twenty-five-year-old William F. Buckley, Jr., seized the public stage—and commanded it for the next half century as he led a new generation of conservative activists and ideologues to the peak of political power and cultural influence. Ten years before his death in 2008, Buckley chose prize-winning biographer Sam Tanenhaus to tell the full, uncensored story of his life and times, granting him extensive interviews and exclusive access to his most private papers. Thus began a deep investigation into the vast and often hidden universe of Bill Buckley and the modern conservative revolution. Buckley vividly captures its subject in all his facets and phases: founding editor of National Review, the twentieth century's most influential political journal; syndicated columnist, Emmy-winning TV debater, and bestselling spy novelist; ally of Joseph McCarthy and Barry Goldwater; mentor to Ronald Reagan; game-changing candidate for mayor of New York. Tanenhaus also has uncovered the darker trail of Bill Buckley's secret exploits, including CIA missions in Latin America, dark collusions with Watergate felon Howard Hunt, and Buckley's struggle in his last years to hold together a movement coming apart over the AIDS epidemic, culture wars, and the invasion of Iraq—even as his own media empire was unraveling. At a crucial moment in American history, Buckley offers a gripping and powerfully relevant story about the birth of modern politics and those who shaped it.
Reviews
"Tanenhaus's case for Buckley's significance is mostly tacit, as the book curiously lacks a formal introduction ..."
"The size of this biography would seem to suggest an act of homage, but its effect is to reduce Buckley to smallness ..."
"An enjoyable and fascinating romp through American political and cultural life in much of the 20th century."
"Buckley is a magnificent work of history as well as of biography, and is as relevant to these parlous times as it is revelatory of Buckley and his times ..."
"Monumental and instructive, albeit likely to find its chief readership among the last of the conservative old guard ..."
"A long (a thousand pages, though it reads shorter), well-written, and intelligent take, both critical and admiring, on a complicated man."
"It offers a deeply affectionate portrait of Buckley's personal life ..."
"One of the curious features of Buckley's life, as Tanenhaus notes, is his distaste for actual politics ..."
"Tanenhaus has left us with a fair and balanced story of a life of purpose, one that was actively lived and whose echoes are still felt today."
"While being much more than this, Buckley is a slyly insightful prehistory of Trumpism ..."
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