As one who as a high school lad in the late 1970s in Wilton, Connecticut came to these precincts via the bestselling self-help and investment books of Harry Browne, thence to my then-townsman the great libertarian journalist Henry Hazlitt and the adjacent Austrian-economic theorists Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard, thence to a bit of freelancing after Hillsdale and then NYU in the Books pages of National Review and Chronicles, Wikipedia and the Letters page of The Times Literary Supplement, I after waiting for 27 years am happy to see Sam Tanenhaus stand and deliver his Buckley biography at the last - my father got the hardcover round 2:01 pm June 3, pub day, with my free-trial Audible version downloading at 3 am earlier the same day.
The many reviews so far have been instructive in a Rorschach, blind-men-and-the-elephant manner. My favorite so far, by James Wolcott in Air Mail, extended his fifty-year franchise as a metaphor-loving omnivorous downtown culture vulture in taking an aesthetic approach. In The Wall Street Journal, Barton Swaim opted for outraged pearl-clutching virtue, as did the tag-teaming letter succeeding by James Panero of The New Criterion, an outpost - along with the WSJ books, arts and Opinion pages themselves, of course - of the New York neocon-cum-MAGA cultural mafia where, if founding editor Hilton Kramer, longtime don Roger Kimball and next-gen made man Panero are country fair pickled hog's head sample enough, the popinjay sporting of a bow tie always and everywhere would seem to be a non-negotiable job requirement, affording us heathens well on the outside the sport of seeing in the cervical and ideational constriction resulting, the very image of apoplexy as proxy for aesthetic orthodoxy.
See also onetime Buckley dauphin and longtime Senior Editor Rick Brookhiser in the July 2025 NR; Louis Menand in The New Yorker for June 2, 2025; Jennifer Burns of Stanford, biographer of Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman, in Tanenhaus's former editorial fiefdom, The New York Times Book Review; the reviews across the pond in the Spectator and the Telegraph; and the omnibus tallies at Bookmarks (tip: as-it-happens Google Alerts).
Thank you for the round up of reviews. I congratulate you for even bothering with The New Criterion, a most loathsome sort they are. Cultural elitists and pretentious snobs who have found common cause with a leader who would have to sound out the words in their essays.
Tait is always a great read, even if I don't always agree with him. I have not read the new Buckley bio (pre-ordered and enroute) , but I had concerns from the start. First, I felt that as time went on that Tanenhaus, like Edmund Morris with Reagan, found himself confronted with a subject that he didn't quite know how to tackle. The difference being that Morris couldn't find enough Reagan and it appears that Tanenhaus had too much Buckley.
Second, I read Tanenhaus' book, The Death of Conservatism, in the early days of the Obama administration and was struck with how little Tanenhaus understood modern conservatism (I am speaking of the pre Trump variety).
Having read several reviews I am now disappointed that the National Review features less as the center of everything when in fact, it was. All one has to do to understand this is read Cruising Speed and/or Overdrive. When William Rusher wrote his autobiography and Lee Edwards penned Rusher's bio - there was no question that NR was ever-present. That should be the case with its founder and guiding light.
Finally I hope there is more to the later years where the anti-semitic insinuations of Pat Buchanan and the nativist inclinations of John O'Sullivan and Peter Brimelow roused Buckley to point out errors.
I am looking forward to the deep dive on Buckley but I am worried it is going to focus more on the obvious and shameful civil rights positions Buckley and NR took and less on what Buckley hoped to accomplish.
Thanks for the review. I think that it confirms that the term conservatism (in European-wide definition, compared to the USA) and because "Trumpist" behaviors = "freedoms" (privillages) for the rich ones and fixation with being anti-left (equality)
I'm pretty sure it was sometime in March 2025 - because I in my fanatic way had been checking Amazon every month or so and, after finally seeing the pub date posted and hemming and hawing for a few days, placed the pre-order for my father on March 30, 2025. Had the pub date been announced as far back as April 2024, even a one-month lapse of attention on my part would have seen me sooner rather than later placing my pre-order within days, which of course I did this March 30.
Thanks for the piece. Since my parents never paid for cable TV growing up, PBS was a mainstay. My political awakening began with the McLaughlin Group and Firing Line. But I had very little knowledge of Buckley other than his accent and mannerism made me wonder if he was American when I was a kid. Obviously, the conservative movement became a grift/entertainment industry the last 30 years. Finally in one fell swoop, destroyed itself completely by letting Trump hijacked it a decade ago.
Buckley was a man of his time but those times are over. Conservatism was something that could be reasonably advocated for when Buckley was in his prime as there was something still worth conserving in our culture. I no longer believe that's the case which is why I haven't described myself as a conservative for quite some time and prefer the label "right wing".
As one who as a high school lad in the late 1970s in Wilton, Connecticut came to these precincts via the bestselling self-help and investment books of Harry Browne, thence to my then-townsman the great libertarian journalist Henry Hazlitt and the adjacent Austrian-economic theorists Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard, thence to a bit of freelancing after Hillsdale and then NYU in the Books pages of National Review and Chronicles, Wikipedia and the Letters page of The Times Literary Supplement, I after waiting for 27 years am happy to see Sam Tanenhaus stand and deliver his Buckley biography at the last - my father got the hardcover round 2:01 pm June 3, pub day, with my free-trial Audible version downloading at 3 am earlier the same day.
The many reviews so far have been instructive in a Rorschach, blind-men-and-the-elephant manner. My favorite so far, by James Wolcott in Air Mail, extended his fifty-year franchise as a metaphor-loving omnivorous downtown culture vulture in taking an aesthetic approach. In The Wall Street Journal, Barton Swaim opted for outraged pearl-clutching virtue, as did the tag-teaming letter succeeding by James Panero of The New Criterion, an outpost - along with the WSJ books, arts and Opinion pages themselves, of course - of the New York neocon-cum-MAGA cultural mafia where, if founding editor Hilton Kramer, longtime don Roger Kimball and next-gen made man Panero are country fair pickled hog's head sample enough, the popinjay sporting of a bow tie always and everywhere would seem to be a non-negotiable job requirement, affording us heathens well on the outside the sport of seeing in the cervical and ideational constriction resulting, the very image of apoplexy as proxy for aesthetic orthodoxy.
See also onetime Buckley dauphin and longtime Senior Editor Rick Brookhiser in the July 2025 NR; Louis Menand in The New Yorker for June 2, 2025; Jennifer Burns of Stanford, biographer of Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman, in Tanenhaus's former editorial fiefdom, The New York Times Book Review; the reviews across the pond in the Spectator and the Telegraph; and the omnibus tallies at Bookmarks (tip: as-it-happens Google Alerts).
Thank you for the round up of reviews. I congratulate you for even bothering with The New Criterion, a most loathsome sort they are. Cultural elitists and pretentious snobs who have found common cause with a leader who would have to sound out the words in their essays.
Tait is always a great read, even if I don't always agree with him. I have not read the new Buckley bio (pre-ordered and enroute) , but I had concerns from the start. First, I felt that as time went on that Tanenhaus, like Edmund Morris with Reagan, found himself confronted with a subject that he didn't quite know how to tackle. The difference being that Morris couldn't find enough Reagan and it appears that Tanenhaus had too much Buckley.
Second, I read Tanenhaus' book, The Death of Conservatism, in the early days of the Obama administration and was struck with how little Tanenhaus understood modern conservatism (I am speaking of the pre Trump variety).
Having read several reviews I am now disappointed that the National Review features less as the center of everything when in fact, it was. All one has to do to understand this is read Cruising Speed and/or Overdrive. When William Rusher wrote his autobiography and Lee Edwards penned Rusher's bio - there was no question that NR was ever-present. That should be the case with its founder and guiding light.
Finally I hope there is more to the later years where the anti-semitic insinuations of Pat Buchanan and the nativist inclinations of John O'Sullivan and Peter Brimelow roused Buckley to point out errors.
I am looking forward to the deep dive on Buckley but I am worried it is going to focus more on the obvious and shameful civil rights positions Buckley and NR took and less on what Buckley hoped to accomplish.
Thanks for the review. I think that it confirms that the term conservatism (in European-wide definition, compared to the USA) and because "Trumpist" behaviors = "freedoms" (privillages) for the rich ones and fixation with being anti-left (equality)
Goldwater in your heart you know he’s nuts 😆
Been waiting for Tannenhaus to publish for so long, I can't remember if I pre-ordered this.
I checked my pre-order...April 19, 2024 when they finally posted a publication date.
I'm pretty sure it was sometime in March 2025 - because I in my fanatic way had been checking Amazon every month or so and, after finally seeing the pub date posted and hemming and hawing for a few days, placed the pre-order for my father on March 30, 2025. Had the pub date been announced as far back as April 2024, even a one-month lapse of attention on my part would have seen me sooner rather than later placing my pre-order within days, which of course I did this March 30.
Honestly can't remember HOW I would have pre-ordered. Through the publisher, yes? I am convinced this why I am not wealthy, by the way.
Thanks for the piece. Since my parents never paid for cable TV growing up, PBS was a mainstay. My political awakening began with the McLaughlin Group and Firing Line. But I had very little knowledge of Buckley other than his accent and mannerism made me wonder if he was American when I was a kid. Obviously, the conservative movement became a grift/entertainment industry the last 30 years. Finally in one fell swoop, destroyed itself completely by letting Trump hijacked it a decade ago.
This is why it’s so wrong to defund PBS
Buckley was a man of his time but those times are over. Conservatism was something that could be reasonably advocated for when Buckley was in his prime as there was something still worth conserving in our culture. I no longer believe that's the case which is why I haven't described myself as a conservative for quite some time and prefer the label "right wing".