Buckley - by Sam Tanenhaus (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

"A magnificent achievement--a long, gripping, and enthralling account of the life of America's premier conservative polemicist of the twentieth century."--Max Boot, author of Reagan: His Life and Legend

"A rich, immersive biography exposes the roots of the modern conservative movement through the life of the firebrand writer and commentator who shaped it."--The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, The Economist, The Financial Times, Telegraph (UK), Christian Science Monitor, Air Mail, Prospect Magazine

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD

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.

Review Quotes

"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. Beautifully written."--John Banville, The London Times

"A smart, stylish, and clear-eyed portrait of a complicated man--and of the rise of American conservatism, with Buckley in a starring role."--The New Yorker

"Painstakingly researched and beautifully crafted, Buckley is a capacious and incisive history of the modern conservative movement's formative years, seen through the eyes of its intellectual leader--a man who, in Tanenhaus's hands, is enthralling and infuriating by turns, but never boring."--The Washington Post

"A biography not just of a prominent influencer but also of a potent movement . . . a milestone contribution to our understanding of the American Century."--The Boston Globe

"The principal achievement of Buckley is to have tightly wound together the life of the man and the life of the movement he coaxed into being almost single-handedly . . . In Tanenhaus, both have found their Robert Caro."--Mark Lilla, The New York Review of Books

"Massive and absorbing . . . a welcome debunking of the myth of Buckley as a mainstream conservative when in fact he was a key catalyst of the radical right. . . . finely detailed and clear-­sighted."--Jeet Heer, The Nation

"Marvelous, decades-in-the-making . . . offers a deeply affectionate portrait of Buckley's personal life . . . [and] also methodically surfaces the darker strains of the movement."--The New Republic

"A magnificent, absorbing work about a man known as the father of postwar American conservatism."--Chronicles Magazine

"Shows a rare familiarity with its subject and his times. . . . Tanenhaus is to be congratulated for his achievement."--The Spectator World

"A lively, balanced and deeply researched book . . . engrossing."--The Guardian

"A chronicle of the life of a man but also a history of the era he helped to shape . . . worth the wait."--The Washington Free Beacon

"A grand biography . . . magnificent."--The Washington Monthly

"Meticulous . . . unlikely to be bettered anytime soon."--The Financial Times

"Superb . . . Tanenhaus discovered some parts of the story that were largely unknown . . . fair and balanced story of a life of purpose, one that was actively lived and whose echoes are still felt today."--The Christian Science Monitor

"Runs to more than 1,000 pages--yet is not a word too long."--The Economist

"Monumental, honest, fair-minded, and spectacularly enlightening."--Foreign Affairs

"[A] stunning new biography . . . Tanenhaus chronicles Buckley's . . . sprawling career as a right-wing revolutionary."--Nicole Hemmer, Democracy Journal

"Unfurls a remarkable canvas . . . a vivid portrait of a singular man."--Law and Liberty

"William F. Buckley forever changed America, and Tanenhaus's Buckley will forever change how we understand America."--John Ganz, author of When the Clock Broke

"A superb biography. Writing a life is harder than it looks. Sam Tanenhaus' contribution is up there with Robert Blake's classic Disraeli."--Niall Ferguson, author of Kissinger, 1923-1968: The Idealist and The House of Rothschild

"Sam Tanenhaus . . . has illuminated the often ugly ideological origins of our present predicament."--Jonathan Alter, author of His Very Best

"A stone-cold masterpiece . . . Buckley is a brilliant portrait of man, movement, and age."--Geoffrey Kabaservice, author of Rule and Ruin

"Buckley is all that a biography could and should be: penetrating, deeply researched, respectful but critical."--Beverly Gage, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of G-Man

"Writing with superb insight into celebrity culture, Tanenhaus nails Buckley for many lapses of judgment, while also revealing his countless acts of unpublicized generosity."--Richard Wightman Fox, author of Lincoln's Body

"Tanenhaus is clear-eyed about Buckley's many failures but also does justice to his eccentric charisma, humanity, and wit."--Publishers Weekly, starred review

About the Author

Sam Tanenhaus, the former editor of The New York Times Book Review, is the author of Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America, The Death of Conservatism, and Whittaker Chambers: A Biography (winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize). His feature articles and essays have appeared in the Atlantic, New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, and many other publications in the U.S. and abroad. He is currently a contributing writer for the Washington Post.