William F Buckley Jr
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William F. Buckley, Jr. and the Politics of Reality February 28, 2025
This year is the centennial of the birth of William F. Buckley, Jr., the best-known American conservative intellectual of the second half of the 20th century, and February 27 is the anniversary of his death in 2008 at the age of 82. To most Americans...
American Renaissance Man February 24, 2025
American Impresario: William F. Buckley, Jr., and the Elements of American Character is mistitled. The title, and the advertising that has accompanied the book, suggests a biography of Buckley and his role in American life. (Something I was still ant...
Would Bill Buckley Yell Stop? November 22, 2024
The year 2025 marks the centenary of modern conservativism’s founder, William F. Buckley Jr. But given the takeover of the Republican Party by Donald Trump, whether conservative still means what it once did is an open question. In these times it’s na...
An Inept Takedown of William F. Buckley April 15, 2024
Last week, PBS aired The Incomparable Mr. Buckley, a documentary on William F. Buckley, Jr. The film, directed and produced by Barak Goodman, is part of PBS’ American Masters series, and it is—as anyone might have predicted—a work rooted in the lefti...
On Buckley, PBS Gives Us a Man in Part, Not in Full April 10, 2024
The American Masters film on William F. Buckley Jr., The Incomparable Mr. Buckley, has just concluded its premiere on PBS. Here are my notes from Friday night’s broadcast. (My apologies for the length. If I’d had more time, it would have been shorter...
PBS Misremembers William F. Buckley Jr. April 10, 2024
Imagine making a documentary about one of the 20th century’s leading opponents of the Ku Klux Klan — without ever talking about the evil of the KKK itself.If that sounds like malpractice, consider PBS’s new documentary on the life of William F. Buckl...
Around the World With William F. Buckley Jr. August 02, 2023
William F. Buckley Jr. kept busy. Between the publication of “God and Man at Yale” in 1951 when he was 25 years old and his death in 2008 at age 82, the founder of National Review magazine and leader of the conservative intellectual movement in Ameri...
William F. Buckley Jr.’s Travel Writings May 30, 2023
William F. Buckley Jr.’s father once sent a note to his son’s future father-in-law: “You will find it very easy to entertain Bill when he visits you. You need only provide him with a horse, a yacht, or an airplane.”...
The Enduring Legacy of William F. Buckley Jr. February 13, 2023
I met him in 1963. I was sitting at my desk at Doubleday & Company, the junior-most executive at what was then the biggest and arguably the best book publisher in the country. The phone rang and a man identifying himself as William Buckley said, “I’v...
A Portrait of the Golden Age of Journalism January 25, 2023
I remember listening to a radio interview with William F. Buckley Jr. some years back. The interviewer brought up Lance Morrow’s name in one way or another, and Buckley mentioned in his response that Morrow was the finest essayist in the country. It ...
Right and Writer May 03, 2022
Steven F. Hayward has published a biography of M. Stanton Evans, a major figure in American conservatism. He was a thinker, a writer, an educator, an activist, and, not least, a journalist. In an age of liberal dominance, he was a media critic who di...
The Pragmatic American April 29, 2022
The following essay is excerpted from "I, Citizen: A Blueprint for Reclaiming American Self-Governance". This is Part 1 in a symposium that seeks to answer the question posed within this essay: "Can 'We the People' be trusted?"The Pragmatic American...
A Death-Row Inmate’s Embrace of William F. Buckley Jr. February 25, 2022
In a country that incarcerates Black people at a rate five times that of white people, one thing is uncomfortably clear: The truth matters less than who controls the narrative. The person whose perspective is amplified is more often the one believed....
When Baldwin Squared Off Against Buckley October 25, 2019
"The Fire Is Upon Us," by Nicholas Buccola, is at once a biography of two leading American intellectuals and an in-depth look at their legendary 1965 debate over civil rights....
God and Man Everywhere May 24, 2019
In 1951, William F. Buckley, Jr.—then a newly minted 25-year-old Yale University graduate—published his historic God and Man at Yale, an indispensable founding document of modern American conservatism. In this, his first book, he argued that his long...
The Legacies of William F. Buckley Jr. April 01, 2019
In a 60 Minutes interview that aired shortly before Ronald Reagan's inauguration, Morley Safer asked William F. Buckley Jr., "Has there ever been a liberal Buckley? What would you do if one came along and openly proclaimed to be?"Buckley's response: ...
Conservative Populism, from Buckley to Trump March 11, 2019
Of all the strange and remarkable features of politics in the Trump era, among the least strange and remarkable is the alliance that has emerged between conservatism and populism. That it seems so striking to many conservatives reflects a certain dis...
How Did Buckley's 'Up from Liberalism' Age? January 29, 2019
Recently I picked up as bedtime reading a book I hadn't looked at since the early 1960s. I'm referring to Bill Buckley's Up from Liberalism, which I bought second-hand in the original 1959 edition.The book made a profound impression on me as a colleg...
Roger Scruton on What It Means to Be a Conservative August 03, 2018
Sir Roger Scruton is a writer and philosopher who has published more than 40 books in philosophy, aesthetics, and politics, and his work has been widely translated. He is a fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Society of Literature. He teac...
